The Forever Season

College football player Corinthians Phillipians McKay, nicknamed C.P., is perfect--so perfect that as a narrator he offers little to kindle the reader's imagination. That's the main problem behind this first novel, which quickly becomes as static as its main character. The reader first meets C.P. as a young boy growing up in a typical fictional Southern household, terrorized by his alcoholic father and his Jesus-crazed maw. C.P.'s football talents take him to Sparta University, a local powerhouse, where he has to deal with a number of problems: his self-serving football coach, who asks him to cripple an opposing player; the university president, who makes some unsavory offers; the unwelcome advances of a gay Pulitzer-winning English professor; and a sleazy figure from his past. The other characters here, including a black teammate, a Native American and C.P.'s love interest, are so stereotypical as to border on the offensive. Keith attempts to script a modern-day morality tale, but even the twist ending can't save his inauspicious debut. (Sept.)