Playing for Pizza – John Grisham

If you're anything like me then I'm pretty sure that you'll hear the name John Grisham and instantly think of American lawyers and books in which the underdog beats a large company, law firm or even the law itself. That's how all John Grisham books that I've read before have panned out. Playing for Pizza couldn't be more different!

In this book we follow the story of Rick Dockery. Rick played American Football for an NFL team in the States, until he gave the worst performance of his life in a crucial match. At this point he became a laughing stock and his agent was no longer able to find any team that would take him. Instead Rick finds himself in Parma in Italy, playing as quarter back for the Parma Panthers. 

It seems that there is an American Football league in Italy, but one in which all the Italian players are paid in food rather than cash and sponsorship deals. Rick has never been to Italy before and has no idea what awaits him in terms of football, food and lifestyle. His new team mates believe that Rick is the answer to all their problems and they are convinced that this is the year that they will win the Superbowl, thanks to their new quarterback.

This is generally an OK book. I know nothing about American Football though, and to be honest have no interest in learning about it. There are several sections of the book where Grisham describes game play and I have to say that I had absolutely no idea what was going on in these sections. I couldn't even tell if what he was describing was a good thing or not! For me though this just ruined things a little bit. I'll be looking carefully at any other Grisham books that I pick up and I hope that they're back to stories about lawyers!