Friday, March 28, 2014

Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher

This is a re-read for me--read it back when it was published in the early nineties.  Wow--this book has been around since I was in high school!  Some of the stories are a bit dated, so I guess we can call this short story collection historical fiction. 

In typical Chris Crutcher fashion, he tackles racism, bigotry, homosexuality, weight issues, and about everything else teens deal with in a straight-forward, non-preachy way.  Some of these stories star characters from his previous novels, so it's familiar to find out more about them. You can't go wrong with the short story about Angus, which Crutcher turned into a screenplay for this movie from 1995:


And the short story about a teenage boy who meets a gay man who is dying from AIDS.  I forgot how much people feared AIDS back then--back when people died from it more often.

If you've never read Crutcher (and you should have), this book is a great introduction to some of his best characters--read it!

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