Actually a novel by Don Delillo. Trashy and fun, lots of soft core loving, but still probably only for serious fans and/or collectors.

this was enjoyable for the most part, though i do get why delillo didn't publish under his real name. overall a fun book with occasional pseudo-profundity. some parts, especially the sex scenes, are tough to get through.

I wish all of Delillo's books were this accessible, fun, and downright silly. The writing craft throughout the book is evident, and it seems clear from the outset that this manuscript is a practice dojo for a writer just wanting to work some things out. If you go in expecting a complete, and perhaps usually somewhat pretentious piece of Delillo-ness, it's not for you. But if you forego the sterling standards and just let the writing be the fun, this book can't miss. The story is really only partly about hockey, and as a 20 year player from Minnesota, I loved the hockey trimmings on the much larger human tree here. This is one of my favorite books period.

One of the funniest books I've read in ages. And it belongs in the upper half of DeLillo's remarkable oeuvre.
4.5 stars

tries to be literary trash. succeeds at neither.

a sort of hypersexualized screwball comedy taking place through the eyes of the first woman to play in the nhl, cleo birdwell. cleo birdwell, the author, is a pseudonym of Don DeLillo, and it reads like a Delillo book from start to finish. There's very little hockey in there, in spite of the premise. What the book is mostly about is men who are surrounded by other men in what is basically a testosterone/masculinity contest seeking out the warmth and tenderness of a woman who can give them a reprieve from that: most of these men are scumbags. there is also a massive subplot about the distinction between sickness and health and that arbitrariness of disease. in some ways this novel is remarkable, and in some ways it is really dull. out of print, unfortunately, but worth reading if you can get your hands on it.