Posnanski and the Paterno book

Is there anything else in the jacket copy that balances the graf you posted?

I guess editorially, the question comes down to what you're really selling: Is it a book about a beloved/powerful football coach whose life took a dramatic twist at the end, or is it about a scandal that brought down a football coach? Big difference.

No doubt they're counting on selling the book to a lot of Paterno lovers, so they're putting their chips on the first option.

 

The epigraph:

"We have difficulty as a nation - this is American, and it relates to our particular time - we have difficulty admiring people. We take such pride in our skepticism. But the natural antithesis of skepticism, the celebration and virtue of accomplishment, is wandering lost somewhere. It is the age of the antihero." - Bill James

All right, time to dig in. I hope some of the rest of you on this thread will plunk down the purchase price today. We've had so much good discussion on the project already. We need to bring it on home now that it's out.

 

The long middle paragraph is about Paterno's accomplishments: "He was honored with every distinction college football has to offer ..."

Then it says, "Joe Posnanski lived in State College, Pennsylvania, during the last year's of Paterno's life, and was with Paterno and his family as the scandal unfolded that eventually consumed him."

At that point comes the comparison to Maraniss and Cramer, followed by the closing about him being an "idealist, a teacher, and a builder."

 

I get the feeling that the book jackets were printed early. Hideously early.

 

You could make a strong argument that the jacket should have been reprinted at any cost, with the regulation melodramatic prose replaced by a passage from the book, something that shows Posnanski got it. A simple brief excerpt, in quotes.

I am convinced that in general, jacket copy kills more books than it sells.

 

Allen Barra. Kaboom.


www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/08/paterno-a-relentless-failed-defense-of-penn-states-disgraced-coach/261376/

 

Football does not trump all, except when it does.

 

How many warts are in the biography?

 

These two lines really stood out to me in the Atlantic piece:

"Time and again, Posnanski writes as if it was his intention to make clear issues cloudy."
"Excuses for Paterno's behavior are littered throughout the text."

I feel like I should read the book myself before I criticize it, but this review makes it sound like the book is exactly what I was afraid it would be.

 

There is a pretty negative review of the book in this week's SI. It reads like, "We're trying to be nice because we like Joe, but the book sucks..."

I actually felt bad for him after reading the review.

 

Any chance he'd have to pay back some of the advance?

 

Why would he? He gave them a book earlier than they agreed on. It will probably sell better than it would have when he signed the deal.