A hilarious but nonetheless groundbreaking contribution to the argument about which force shapes American life the most. For two kinds of readers—those who know it’s football and those who are about to find out.
Chuck Klosterman—New York Times bestselling critic, journalist, and, yes, football psychotic—did not write this book to deepen your appreciation of the game. He’s not trying to help you become that person at the party, or to teach you how to make better bets, or to validate any preexisting views you might have about the sport (positive or negative). Football does, in fact, do all of those things. But not in the way such things have been done in the past, and never in a way any normal person would expect.
Cultural theorists talk about hyperobjects—phenomena that bulk so large that their true dimensions are hidden in plain sight. In 2023, 93 of the 100 most-watched programs on U.S. television were NFL football games. This is not an anomaly. This is how society is best understood. Football is not merely the country’s most popular sport; it is engrained in almost everything that explains what America is, even for those who barely pay attention.
Klosterman gets to the bottom of all of it. He takes us to a metaphorical projection of Texas, where the religion of six-man football merges with America’s Team [sic] and makes an inexplicable impact on a boy in North Dakota. He dissects the question of natural greatness, the paradox of gambling and war, and the timeless caricature of the uncompromising head coach. He interrogates the perfection of football’s marriage with television and the morality of acceptable risk. He even conjures an extinction-level event. If Žižek liked the SEC more than he liked cinema, if Stephen Jay Gould cared about linebackers more than he cared about dinosaurs, if Steve Martin played quarterback instead of the banjo . . . it would still be nothing like this.
A century ago, Yale’s legendary coach Walter Camp wrote his unified theory of the game. He called it Football. Chuck Klosterman has given us a new Camp for the new age, rooted in a personal history he cannot escape.
About the Author
Chuck Klosterman is the bestselling author of ten nonfiction books (including The Nineties; Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; and But What If We’re Wrong?), two novels (Downtown Owl and The Visible Man), and the short story collection Raised in Captivity. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ (London), Esquire, Spin, The Guardian (London), The Believer, and ESPN. Klosterman served as the Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine for three years and was an original founder of the website Grantland with Bill Simmons. He was raised in rural North Dakota and now lives in Portland, Oregon.
Praise For…
“Eye-opening and entertaining . . . Approaching the subject with rigor and drawing on his lifelong fascination with the game, Klosterman sheds light on football’s ‘outsized and underrated’ role in shaping contemporary culture. The result is a transcendent appraisal of America’s favorite sport.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Funny, thought-provoking . . . Marshalling [Klosterman’s] customary blend of learned and low-culture references—Noam Chomsky, meet AC/DC . . . a smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.” —Kirkus (starred review)
“Klosterman is one of those writers whom I find it truly joyous to read, taking pure satisfaction in the simple act of reading words from a writer who cares about his craft, knows what he’s doing, and is clearly having a blast. It doesn’t matter what he’s writing about: I find it actively fun to read him, and have done so for more than two decades now. Whenever he has a new book come out, I find it difficult not to finish it in one setting.” —Will Leitch
“An excellent and highly conceptual book about America’s favorite sport. Could this be the best book on (American) football ever?” —Tyler Cowen
