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Throwback Special

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Throwback Special

Written by: Chris Bachelder
Narrated by: R.C. Bray
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About this listen

The Throwback Special is the story of 22 ordinary guys who gather each fall to reenact what ESPN has called "the most shocking play in NFL history": the November 1985 play in which Joe Theismann of the Washington Redskins had his leg horribly broken by Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants on Monday Night Football. (The play was known by the Redskins as "the Throwback Special".) Over the course of a weekend, we follow the men as they choose roles; spend a long night of the soul revealing their secret hopes, fears, and passions as they prepare for the game; and finally enact their strange and yet oh, so American ritual for what may be the last time.

With his trademark "microfine sense of humor and tragic sense of history" (Michael Chabon), Chris Bachelder fills his moving and very funny tale with pitch-perfect observations about manhood, marriage, and middle age.

©2016 Chris Bachelder. Recorded by arrangement with W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books Fiction Literary Fiction Sports Witty Tearjerking Funny
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What the critics say

"What a brilliant book." (Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang)
"A comic meditation about marriage, ritual, friendship, parenthood, aging, and unlikely obsessions. This is a funny, insightful, and surprisingly poignant book." (Julie Schumacher, best-selling author of Dear Committee Members)
"A hilarious literary novel about our least hilarious - and least literary - national pastime. No one who reads it will ever be able to think about football, Joe Theismann, Lawrence Taylor, or indeed the male psyche in quite the same way again." (Tom Bissell, author of Extra Lives)

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