Sooley by John Grisham is a novel about the joy of basketball, the pipeline to the NBA, the reality of civil wars in Sudan, and admirable do-gooders and despicable bad-doers in all three venues. Sooley is a kid on the dirt basketball courts in South Sudan with a four foot vertical leap and a shot that can’t hit the broad side of the barn. However, he works hard, gets better, and gets a chance to play ball in the USA for a small college. Contemporaneous with leaving Sudan, his family’s village is raided by bad guys, his sister is taken hostage, and the rest of his family become refugees. I don’t want to reveal the plot but it proceeds mostly like you might guess, except for the ending.
When I was in elementary school, I read a series of books about a sports hero named Chip Hilton, who played baseball (pitcher), football (quarterback), and basketball (guard). The last third of Sooley, which chronicles the NCAA run Sooley’s team makes, in the NCAA, reminded me a lot of those Chip Hilton books. My problem was with the first two-thirds of the book. While there was a lot of interesting information about civil war in Sudan and about the world of basketball, I would have liked more conflict and plot in the first half of the book.
Reviews are mixed. The book has high ratings on Goodreads but Publisher’s Weekly says “Grisham shoots an airball in this sappy novel.” Similarly, here’s what Kirkus Reviews says
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/sooley/
Mike,
I read all of the Chip Hiltons and have two complete sets of the books, including the hard to find “Firey Fullback” of which only 500 were printed. So I did understand your review. The first 40 percent of the book was without conflict, much like Sooley’s jump shot. Grisham is one of my favorites and this one doesn’t disappoint.