Read Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream Online

Authors: H. G. Bissinger

Tags: #State & Local, #Physical Education, #Permian High School (Odessa; Tex.) - Football, #Odessa, #Social Science, #Football - Social Aspects - Texas - Odessa, #Customs & Traditions, #Social Aspects, #Football, #Sports & Recreation, #General, #United States, #Sociology of Sports, #Sports Stories, #Southwest (AZ; NM; OK; TX), #Education, #Football Stories, #Texas, #History

Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

Nationwide Acclaim for FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

"Superb and disturbing.... More than a sports book, it's a
search for the America of ordinary people."

-Newsday

"Bears comparison to the brightly illuminating fictional
works of Ring Lardner and Jack London.... FRIDAY NIGHT
LIGHTS is a book about lust and longing, aspiration and
education, sex roles, race relations, economic uncertainty
and national identity."

-Philadelphia Inquirer

"A pressure-cooker of a book, it scalds ...Bissinger touches
the real boy in American manhood when he writes about
game-time Friday night."

-Christian Science Monitor

"Not only one of the best sports books in recent years, but
one of the most revealing looks at America's small-town
values-good and bad-you are likely to read."

-Denver Post

"A clear and chilling depiction.... An athletic Common
Ground. " - -

-Boston Herald

"Bissinger's book moves far beyond sport, in a telling,
damning sociological sketch."

-Miami Herald

"Penetrating and evocative... .A story that is bigger than
Odessa, bigger than Texas for that matter. The
undercurrents that shape society are all at play here."

-Milwaukee Journal

"Moving and troubling.... Engrossing."

-Pittsburgh Press

"A great job of capturing Odessa as it really is.... Readers
who can read the book without applying their own emotions
will find times when they want to cry."

-Odessa American.

"Fascinating and colorfiilly written."

-Boston Globe

"Riveting.... Reads like a suspense story, a page-turner."

-Oakland Tribune

FRIDAY
NIGHT
LIGHTS

A Town, a Team,
and a Dream

H. G. BISSINGER

To Howard, whom I miss.

To Sarah, Gerry and Zachary, whom I love.

In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
Arid the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes.

-FROM "Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio,"
by James Wright

PHOTOGRAPHS By ROB CLARK JR.

Contents