Fighting in the Shade

"A brilliant, fearless look at the savage rites of passage that exist in the fraternity of American sports . . . gripping and unforgettable." —Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River

In 1964, seventeen-year-old Billy Dyer is a newcomer to Oleander, a Gulf Coast Florida town whose old guard define football as the ancient Spartans did their Agoge. It is a mode of brutal tutelage that forges the hearts and minds of the town's elite youth for a future of power. Billy's parents are recently div...