Kliatt: Keith, Don. The forever season - Brief Article - Young Adult Review

(A Deep South Book). Univ. of Alabama Press. 276p. c1995. 0-8173-1242-0. $18.95. SA

When the first sentence of a book about football states, "I died exactly the way I lived," a reader is immediately curious about the author's intent. Since American football is considered a sport of cultural significance, Don Keith's identification of 1960s Southern culture and its corresponding rigid class structure--along with time period references to family life, corruption in sports, social upheaval, and political strife during the height of the Vietnam Conflict--seems appropriate.

Corinthian Phillipians McKay, better known as CP, was born to play football in the "Southern style." His gambling father's dreams of having CP play in the SEC (Southeastern Conference) are recognized when CP accepts a scholarship to fictitious Sparta University. Here, CP encounters an onslaught of moral and ethical issues surrounding collegiate football that will eventually lead to his untimely demise.

Keith's first-person dialogue and ability to weave social, psychological, cultural, and economic issues into the storyline make The Forever Season an entertaining piece of sports fiction. Literature classes looking for a good genre-specific book for critical analysis will find Keith's book to be a great fit. It should be noted that mature language and themes may require school library media specialists, teachers, and/or YA public librarians to evaluate this carefully for acceptable audience selection purposes. Tom Adamich, Ohio Liaison, Cuyahoga Falls, OH