Back in the Game

This breezy, middle-of-the-road sports novel from Iowa native Holdefer (The Contractor) concerns a washed-up professional baseball player endeavoring to establish some stability in his life after baseball. Stanley Mercer makes it to the AAA league until injuries force him to play ball overseas. After bitter quarrels with his girlfriend and boss leave him broke and beat, Stanley falsifies his résumé and lands a public school teaching contract in rural Legion, Iowa. He rents out what he learns was a meth house, attempts to teach earth science, and honors the football team’s mascot Bernie by wearing a rubber pig snout. Before long, he strikes up a dicey romance with the mercurial Amy Rawlings, the mother of one of his disturbed pupils and the wife of a local realtor and chronic meth “tweaker.” The determined Stanley makes it to spring until his bogus credentials are exposed. Holdefer’s satisfying, at times funny novel describes a maturing pro athlete’s often bumpy transition from youthful dreams to mainstream American life. (June)