Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘The Fan’

Beginnings

On Sunday we do beginnings – all the Peter Abrahams novels, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker. Since it’s spring, how about The Fan (filmed by Tony Scott with a fine cast)? Sports often play a role in our work – Bernie pitched for Army, as Chet and Bernie readers know – but never more than in this one. It begins with sports talk radio – a kind of Greek chorus that appears several times in the book. Gil is the fan.

[“Peter Abrahams’ The Fan is a shrewdly crafted thriller about a spoiled, egotistical home run hitter and the schlemiel hunting knife dealer’s rep whose hero worship metastasizes into obsession…the tale’s sharp characterizations, crisp style, and unpredictable plot twists add up to a highly credible and suspenseful literary entertainment.” – Entertainment Weekly]

“Who’s next? Gil on the car phone? What’s shaking’, Gil?”

Dead air.

“Speak, Gil.”

“Is this …”

“Go on.”

“Hello?”

“You’re on the JOC.”

“Am I on?”

“Not for long, Gil, the way we’re going. This is supposed to be entertainment.”

Dead air.

“Got a question or a comment for us, Gil?”

“First-time caller.”

“Fantabulous. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m a little nervous.”

Beginnings

On Sunday we do beginnings – all the Peter Abrahams novels, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker. Since it’s World Series time, how about The Fan (filmed by Tony Scott with a fine cast)? Sports often play a role in  our work – Bernie pitched for Army, as Chet and Bernie readers know – but never more than in this one. It begins with sports talk radio – a kind of Greek chorus that appears several times in the book. Gil is the fan.

[“Peter Abrahams’ The Fan is a shrewdly crafted thriller about a spoiled, egotistical home run hitter and the schlemiel hunting knife dealer’s rep whose hero worship metastasizes into obsession…the tale’s sharp characterizations, crisp style, and unpredictable plot twists add up to a highly credible and suspenseful literary entertainment.” – Entertainment Weekly]

“Who’s next? Gil on the car phone? What’s shaking’, Gil?”

Dead air.

“Speak, Gil.”

“Is this …”

“Go on.”

“Hello?”

“You’re on the JOC.”

“Am I on?”

“Not for long, Gil, the way we’re going. This is supposed to be entertainment.”

Dead air.

“Got a question or a comment for us, Gil?”

“First-time caller.”

“Fantabulous. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m a little nervous.”

October and Baseball

This is the best month for baseball lovers! Football, basketball, hockey – they’d all be basically understandable right away to a newcomer seeing a game for the first time, but baseball: never! Baseball comes up quite a bit in our work – in the YA thriller Bullet Point, for example, the kids’ picture book Quacky Baseball, and of course The Fan was all about baseball. (Cal Ripken, Jr., paying me a very nice compliment on its accuracy, asked how far I’d gone in baseball.  That was a funny conversation.) Baseball also comes up in the Chet and Bernie series. Here’s a little something from Thereby Hangs A Tail:

We drove toward the sun, through a few neighborhoods a lot like our own, then past a baseball field with a kids’ game going on. I didn’t understand baseball but it always looked like fun, and the ball itself I loved. Who’d have guessed what the insides were like? At that very moment a kid swung his bat and the ball went soaring into the sky. We weren’t going very fast. Would it be totally impossible to –

 

Beginnings

On Sunday we’ve been doing beginnings – all the Peter Abrahams novels, including those written under the Spencer Quinn pen name. Here, from 1995, THE FAN  (filmed by Tony Scott with a fine cast). Sports often play a role in PA’s work, but never more than in this one. It begins with sports talk radio – a kind of Greek chorus that appears several times in the book. Gil is the fan.

[“Peter Abrahams’ The Fan is a shrewdly crafted thriller about a spoiled, egotistical home run hitter and the schlemiel hunting knife dealer’s rep whose hero worship metastasizes into obsession…the tale’s sharp characterizations, crisp style, and unpredictable plot twists add up to a highly credible and suspenseful literary entertainment.” – Entertainment Weekly]

“Who’s next? Gil on the car phone? What’s shaking’, Gil?”

Dead air.

“Speak, Gil.”

“Is this …”

“Go on.”

“Hello?”

“You’re on the JOC.”

“Am I on?”

“Not for long, Gil, the way we’re going. This is supposed to be entertainment.”

Dead air.

“Got a question or a comment for us, Gil?”

“First-time caller.”

“Fantabulous. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m a little nervous.”