Full Court Press

FROM OUR EDITORS

In this novel about the worst professional basketball team in the world, sportswriter Lupica is obviously not on journalistic good behavior. His riotous portraits of greedy owners, self-indulgent hoopsters, and story-hungry reporters fuel this novel with laughs -- and women readers will identify with Dee Girard, the first woman ever to play in the NBA.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This season, the coolest guy in basketball isn't a guy. From the author of the "boisterous, bawdy, sharp-witted" (The Philadelphia Inquirer) national bestseller comes another deliciously wicked tale of contemporary professional sports.

"Truly hip, uproariously funny and, my god, it might even be true," wrote Elmore Leonard. "Bump and Run places Lupica high up among the funniest guys writing fiction." And now Lupica proves it again.

This is what happens when the desperate golden-boy owner of the worst pro basketball team in the world and his equally desperate golden-boy coach do the unthinkable: sign the first woman ever to play in the NBA. Her name is Dee Gerard, the daughter of a New York playground legend and the product of God having an exceptionally good day. A star in Europe, but weary of bad arenas, she retires-until the day a scout for the hapless New York Knights calls his boss: "I found you a point guard who is perfect, except for one thing." What, no heart? "It's not a heart, exactly. But you're close."

The league doesn't want the circus. The other players don't want her. The owner wants fannies in the seats. The sportswriters just want their column inches. What she wants . . . is to play in the best game there is. How she gets there, the hilarious and sobering things that happen to her, the personal and professional entanglements that spring up everywhere, the pitfalls of remaining old-school when all about her are tattooed, self-indulgent, young millionaires-this is the smart, funny, outrageous, wonderful story of Full Court ress.

FROM THE CRITICS

Elmore Leonard

Lupica talks the talk, a pro at picking up the rhythms of locker room voices. In other words, it's a howl.

Carl Hiassen

...a brutally accurate, unsparingly funny satire - a naughty delight for true basketball fans.

New York Daily News

...drop-dead hilarious...

Washington Post Book World

Lupica skillfully controls a multilayered plot that ridicules the greed and vanity dominating too much of professional sports territory...

Orlando Sentinel