Bucky F-Word.

Bucky F*cking Dent by David Duchovny

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The former X-Files actor writes the tale of Ted Fullilove, aka Mr Peanut, a New York man whose estranged father Marty is dying but whose situation rapidly improves or deteriorates depending upon the outcome of the Red Sox game. Marty is a Boston fan living in New York, mainly to piss off his neighbors. It is 1978 and many, many years away from the New England sports dominance that the kids have gotten used to today. (Trust me, I grew up in New England in the ‘80s. The Sox sucked, the Bruins sucked, The New England Patriots team that got routed in the Super Bowl by the Chicago Bears 46-10? THAT’s the team I remember. The Celtics were the only team that was any good in those days.) And as the once long-suffering Red Sox fans remember, 1978 was the year the Sox choked up a huge lead only to have it all come down to a one game playoff with the Yankees and…Bucky F*cking Dent.

It is during this summer that Ted Fullilove schemes to keep his father’s spirits high by faking a Red Sox winning streak by manipulating the newspapers and by making use of a new device called a VCR…

I was a little all over the place with this one, at times loving it and at other times believing it to be a little bit thin. But I think it won me over with its wisdom about family and insight above love and death. And then there is this great observation about New Yorkers on pages 181-182, when he talks about former Yankee owner, the (now) late George Steinbrenner:

“Steinbrenner fed into and fed the inflated self-image that Ted perceived was growing stronger in New York City every day…this notion of the city being made up of ‘winners’ took up more and more psychic space, like a cancer. Steinbrenner was a symptom of that spiritual cancer and a cause. Proud to be a New Yorker…really? Why? What gives that particular geographical location the right to demand a winner as opposed to, say, Cleveland? …it meant nothing to be a Yankee, to be a New Yorker, to be an American. It was a uniform. The pinstripes. Like Wall Street. This city on a hill. To cater to this nationalistic heart lurking in all men was evil, and damn good business.”



As the kids say…I’m just gonna leave this here…





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