Ten on Sunday: The Secret Life of Men
- Book Review,
by Alan Eisenstock
From Publishers Weekly
The premise of this book-a group of men have a weekly basketball game that anchors their lives-is so wholesome and therapeutic, it's easy to go into it with a jaded eye. But that won't last for long, since Eisenstock's account is surprisingly unsentimental. A veteran TV writer (Sanford and Son; What's Happening!; etc.), Eisenstock, like many other Los Angelenos of means, moved his family out of the city and up to Santa Monica soon after the Rodney King riots. At his palatial new spread, he realizes a long-festering dream: to have a basketball hoop like he had at his childhood home back East. As it's a crime to let a hoop go unused, Eisenstock assembles an informal pickup game of 10 guys every Sunday that quickly evolves into something much greater. The game becomes the place where these men-almost exclusively white, affluent and professional-can come and, in short, monosyllabic style, of course, talk about their lives with someone besides their spouses or therapists. Months turn into years, and the game becomes an almost-sacrosanct institution that these men plan their weeks around. Befitting his background in TV writing, Eisenstock has an ear for fast, punchy dialogue and quickly capturing a mood. There's little sermonizing about what this guys' coffee klatch ultimately means, but when the game finally comes to a close, there's no doubt the players will miss their weekly ritual.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
When riots in 1992 encroached on his home near South Central L.A., Eisenstock, a writer for TV's Sanford and Son and The Nanny, moved his family to a Santa Monica farmhouse with a driveway large enough to put up a basketball hoop. He promptly did, fulfilling the dream of many boys and several "coexecutive producer[s] of a hot new sitcom" to have a hoop of their own. Before long, Eisenstock and his mates had a regular Sunday morning game. Why not? Eisenstock's wife had her book group. Boys will be boys, middle-aged professionals not excepted, as Eisenstock's re-creation of the male milieu of weekend warriors--the sweating, the swearing, the bonding--attests. While all hell broke loose around them--earthquakes, O.J., divorces, blown-out knees--the game was the constant they could count on. When Eisenstock was diagnosed with adhesive capsulitis, the game continued, with the host recuperating on the sidelines. Men, writes Eisenstock, "can achieve closeness without intimacy, while women can achieve intimacy without closeness." His breezy memoir effectively captures that closeness. Benjamin Segedin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
A moving, lyrical, eye-opening look at the true nature of intimacy among men.The L.A. riots had an indelible effect upon the city of Los Angeles, upon the wider debate in this country about race, and especially -- in the pages of this wonderful memoir -- on ten weekend basketball players. After the riots, and once he'd fled his mid-city home for the relative safety of suburban Santa Monica, Alan Eisenstock at last found himself with a driveway that was big enough for a weekly basketball game. For years he'd yearned for this; now all that stood between him and the zone defense was the fruits of the carob tree that fell on the driveway and threatened to ruin the game. Once the surface was clear, however, Sundays were given over to a raucous, competitive, and hilarious series of ball games. But what began as a recreation soon became a chance to shatter the Boy Code once and for all.So here they are: doctors, lawyers, writers, construction guys -- some single, some married -- all, however, committed to the game they're playing, and to the deepening of friendships the time together engenders. Along the way there's a fight and a falling-out; the tragic death of one of the guys' wives; a trip to Mexico that's right out of a buddy movie, except that these early-middle-aged men end up in bed by 9:30 P.M.; a laugh-out-loud karaoke session that has to be read to be believed; and more bagels than any book should ever be able to bear.Holding it all together is Alan Eisenstock himself. His own personal journey from unhappy, stressed-out screenwriter to full-fledged, fulfilled book writer is the story of a man risking his financial and emotional life in order to follow his heart. And what begins as a weekly ritual of game-playing becomes, over five years, a meaningful exchange on marital issues, money worries, and the onset of various midlife crises. The result is a lovely, whimsical, and hilarious book about guys and what they talk about when their better halves are not around.
Download Description
"A moving, lyrical, eye-opening look at the true nature of intimacy among men. The L.A. riots had an indelible effect upon the city of Los Angeles, upon the wider debate in this country about race, and especially -- in the pages of this wonderful memoir -- on ten weekend basketball players. After the riots, and once he'd fled his mid-city home for the relative safety of suburban Santa Monica, Alan Eisenstock at last found himself with a driveway that was big enough for a weekly basketball game. For years he'd yearned for this; now all that stood between him and the zone defense was the fruits of the carob tree that fell on the driveway and threatened to ruin the game. Once the surface was clear, however, Sundays were given over to a raucous, competitive, and hilarious series of ball games. But what began as a recreation soon became a chance to shatter the Boy Code once and for all.
About the Author
Alan Eisenstock is the author of Sports Talk and Inside the Meat Grinder. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
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