Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man

Publishers Weekly

In his raucous book, Atkinson (Paradise Road), a rugby-playing fan and a writing professor at Boston University, is betting the aggressive sport will catch on in the U.S. Rugby goes back to 1830s England when a player grabbed the ball and ran through the opposing team, transforming football (the game we call soccer in the U.S.) into a bare-knuckle scrimmage with new rules. Atkinson often talks about himself, but the real passion comes when he writes of the field wars played by the team at the University of Florida, noting, “If all sports are really about war, then rugby is an eighteenth-century epic of bayonet charges and hand-to-hand fighting.” With intermittent nods to his fiction classes withfamed novelist Harry Crews, the brash writer lists his many injuries from the game, but he remains loyal to this sport requiring commitment, skill, and discipline. There is a short stint in jail, drinking and brawls aplenty, and arguments that spill into the streets. Still, Atkinson, wised up from lessons on the rugby field and off, has created a brawny, engaging treat for followers of the sport and the curious. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

Praise for Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man

“Mr. Atkinson has written a hymn of praise for the rugby game and the rugby community that will ring true to anyone who has played rugby at any level, and will grip even those who haven't.” –Wall Street Journal

“Atkinson’s stylish, unabashedly macho memoir is fueled by two passions: his love of grind-it-out athletic competition and the obvious joy he takes in the high-testosterone, alcohol-fueled comradeship of his fellow rugby players…. Seeded throughout come lessons and insights gleaned from three and a half decades of broken bones and bruised hearts, soaring victory and stunning loss…. Nobody has better explored the game (and the life) of rugby better than Atkinson.” –Boston Globe

“As a thirty-five-year veteran of the sports, the author’s passion translates easily to the page, providing a reflective look at his entrance into what he dubs the ‘blood fraternity’ . . . A testosterone-laden tale deserving of an audience well beyond the locker room.”---Kirkus

“Raucous… With intermittent nods to his fiction classes with famed novelist Harry Crews, the brash writer lists his many injuries from the game, but he remains loyal to this sport requiring commitment, skill, and discipline. There is a short stint in jail, drinking and brawls aplenty, and arguments that spill into the streets. Still, Atkinson, wised up from lessons on the rugby field and off, has created a brawny, engaging treat for followers of the sport and the curious.” –Publishers Weekly

“A reminder of what the game's all about: the friendships you make, the places you go, the lengths you go to to get your weekly fix, the financial sacrifices those of us not swept up into the white card-infested, gouging claim-ridden, money-infected world of professionalism have to make in order to play. It's a reminder that playing and loving rugby, from top level to bottom level, is a lifestyle choice from which few return and even fewer would want to: on that principle alone, it's a bloody good read. Find it and enjoy.” –Planet Rugby

Praise for Jay Atkinson

“Jay Atkinson, the bard of New England toughness, a cross between the poet Robert Frost and the Bruins’ Bobby Orr. Nobody writes about the thick-headed glories of sport with redder blood than Atkinson…. [He] evokes the true joy of kicking ass.” --Men's Health

"A bona-fide masterstroke." — Publishers Weekly on Ice Time

"[Atkinson] seamlessly weaves his past with current events, detailing the team's fortunes while lovingly recalling his own at that time of life." — The Virginian-Pilot on Ice Time

"An evocative, bittersweet, poetic journey of a grown man trying, as we all try, not to recapture youth but to remember the splendor of it." — H. G. Bissinger, author of the bestselling Friday Night Lights on Ice Time

“Atkinson keeps his plot moving at a good pace, offering enough twists to keep the reader’s attention, but it is the humor and insight of his characters that make the novel work.” --The New York Times Book Review on Caveman Politics

Kirkus Reviews

Atkinson (Writing/Boston Univ.; Paradise Road: Jack Kerouac's Lost Highway and My Search for America, 2010, etc.) takes readers on an exuberant journey into the center of the rugby scrum. As a 35-year veteran of the sport, the author's passion translates easily to the page, providing a reflective look at his entrance into what he dubs the "blood fraternity." Atkinson makes no attempt to hide his zeal for the sport, explaining, "There are the things we do for love, and the things we do for rugby…" Atkinson addresses both, examining his struggle to serve two competing mistresses, writing and rugby. Throughout his graduate studies at the University of Florida, Atkinson began to understand the overlapping traits required for writers and rugby players alike: "grit, aggression, physical courage, loyalty, chivalry, insouciance and comic self-awareness…" While Atkinson attempted to hone these skills, he became distracted—not by his sport, but by its culture. When not on the pitch, the author and teammates forged their bonds in the bars, partaking in the usual rabble-rousing (including bar fights and the occasional run-in with the law). Yet Atkinson's hijinks came to a halt when he learned of the death of his father, a life-changing event that forced him to confront emotional pain in addition to his physical pain. Though an overseas rugby tour helped him through his grief, it was not the sport that healed him, but the lessons learned from its grueling trials. A testosterone-laden tale deserving of an audience well beyond the locker room.