First published 2015
Stuart Stevens turns sixty and watches a presidential campaign crumble around him. The defeat stings, but something deeper troubles him. He has spent decades building his career as a writer and political consultant, yet he barely knows his own father anymore. His dad is ninety-five now, and time is running short. Stevens makes a decision. He calls his father in Jackson and proposes they attend Ole Miss football games together, just like they did when Stevens was a boy in the 1960s. His father agrees. Week after week, they drive to the stadium and cheer for the Rebels. Between games, they talk about their lives, their mistakes, and their bond as father and son. The football season becomes a journey through memory and reconciliation. Stevens rediscovers the man who once guided him through childhood in the troubled South. Their conversations are tender and funny, awkward and revealing. As the season winds down, both men understand this may be their last chance to truly know each other.
Genres: family-life, american-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, second-chance
Setting: Jackson, Ole Miss
Period: 1960s, 21st-century
224 pages · Hardcover · Knopf