Moving in Stereo

Wimbledon 1996, and tennis journeyman Richard Blanco is enjoying a late career run of success. He reaches the quarter finals, and, partially due to the possibility that he might beat his nemesis Boris Becker, his agent scores him a million-dollar endorsement deal. Unknown to anyone but his complicated psychologist, Blanco is hearing voices--again. Soon, his long-dead friend Luke Scream, former front man for a punk band, will start injecting insanity into Blanco's father-ravaged psyche. Over this chemically infused summer Blanco plays some mature tennis, yet makes dangerous choices, like getting tied to a hotel bed, and becoming the plaything of a shrewd, unstable businesswoman, whose presence he hides from his down-to-earth stripper girlfriend. Moving In Stereo hopscotches the circuit--London, Los Angeles, New York--but when Blanco returns to his home academy in Florida, he faces a penis-shrinking threat from a charismatic rookie, destined to steal his mojo, and spiraling his impulsiveness to new levels of absurdity. Fans of J. P. Dunleavy and David Foster Wallace will love this book and demand more from Tom Trondson. Tom Trondson uses his considerable first-hand knowledge of professional tennis-its history, psychology, mores, and endorsement deals-for this seriocomic bildungsroman. His protagonist, Richard Blanco, is an erratic also-ran of the pro circuit: capable of winning on Centre Court but more likely to flame out spectacularly. Trondson has given us a persuasive, compelling bad boy: a caddish libertine and a haunted searcher who might be careening towards some sort of enlightenment. A crosscourt winner.-Dylan Hicks, author of Amateurs and Boarded Windows