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Reviews
Review by Bob Lind, Echo Magazine
The revelation that they were a gay couple forced Daniel
Bottega and Jared Stoderling off the professional tennis
circuit four years earlier. In the interim, Daniel was
marking time as the tennis pro at a quiet country club in
San Francisco, while Jared pretty much crawled into a liquor
bottle to drown his crushed dreams. When Daniel is
approached to train Connor Lin, a promising young prodigy
whose tennis game needs focus, he decides to gets Jared
involved as well. Besides getting Jared off drinking, it
reawakens both of their spirits of competition. Jared goes
from just helping Connor workout to being his doubles
partner, and both begin to move up the ranks on their
singles tournaments.
When the press covering one of the midlevel tournaments gets
tipped off about Daniel and Jared's relationship, it results
in rumors that Connor is gay as well (He isn't), and the
trio experience bias from homophobic judges as well as
receiving threats of violence. Determined not to quit again,
they continue to compete, supported by good friends and
Connor's second generation Chinese-American family. As if
the pressure of competition and the homophobia wasn't enough
to deal with, all three suffer physical and emotional
obstacles that threaten to shatter their dreams.
In a word ... Wow! After reading his previous two novels, I
expect outstanding writing from Mr. Chin, but this raises
the bar far above any expectations I had. The story will
remind you a bit of the gay classic "The Front Runner" in
its intensity and "we VS them" conflicts, but I believe the
story and characters are even more realistic and relatable
here. It's the rare novel you may want to read numerous
times, and is a great gift for anyone facing adversity.
Beautifully and skillfully done, I give it five match point
stars out of five. Bravo!
Review by Amos Lassen
Another Beautiful Story from Alan Chin
I have only recently become an Alan Chin fan, and I am so
sorry that it has taken me so long to discover him. His new
book, “Match Maker” is a wonderful read with dynamic
characters and a fascinating plot line. This is exactly what
I have learned to expect from Chin. I do not often sit down
to read a book and finish it in the same sitting and but
that is exactly what happened here. I also know little about
the subject matter, tennis, but I learned a great deal and I
feel so much more complete for having read this.
Chin has the ability to build a story that is so real that
the reader feels he is a part of what is going on between
the covers of the book. The descriptions are vivid, the
writing is purely sublime and I felt let yelling “Bravo”
when I finished it. Instead, I plan to read it again and
this is not something I usually do because I simply do not
have the time to do so but more importantly because there
are not many books that merit a second reading. “Match
Maker” does and I not only plan to do so but I have mapped
out my evening so I can do so tonight.
Let’s have a look at the plot. Daniel Bottega was
forced off the professional tennis tour because he was gay
some four years before the story begins. It, of course, is
not easy for him to have to compromise his love for the
sport with teaching tennis at a second-rate country club,
but Daniel uses his job as a way to hide from a world that
considers him abnormal. Daniel is not alone. He has a
partner, Jared Stoderling, who has been fighting a losing
battle with his addiction to alcohol and this weakness came
about because of his lover and himself not being able to
play professional tennis. We see that sexuality has affected
the lives of both men and affected them deeply.
Just as things were looking bad for both men, Daniel gets a
chance to coach a tennis prodigy, Connor Linn, and to train
him to win the Grand Slam. He convinces Jared to return to
pro tennis as Connor’s doubles partner. The competition is,
of course, fierce but more than that is the media attention
that Jared and Daniel face. The pro tennis association is
not happy and there is a good deal of fallout there but even
worse is the hate from the public that not only threatens
Daniel and Jared’s love, but Connor’s career and Daniel’s
own life. Here I was reminded of Patricia Nell Warren’s “The
Front Runner” and the story of Billy Sive, and I mean that
as the highest compliment. Chin reminds us once again that
no matter how secure we feel today as gay men in a
heterosexual society, there are still many out there who
hate us and want to see us done away with. We should never
take lightly the security that we feel today.
Alan Chin gives us the beautiful relationship between
Daniel and Jared and I actually felt the love coming off of
the pages of the book. We are also given information about
what goes on behind the scenes in the world of tennis and I
found this to be particularly interesting since I know
nothing about tennis. The book is a tennis romance between
two men who are just that—two men who love each other and
want to be who they are in a world that does not want them
to do so. This is something that should ring true to so many
of us and it is interesting to read about it in such
beautiful prose and between two such wonderfully drawn
characters. This beautiful story is one that will haunt me,
and which I will hold close for a very long time. I must
thank Alan Chin for giving me the chance to read and enjoy
it. |
Excerpt
Connor Lin’s eyes grew large as the
ball bounced short of the service line and sailed into his
strike zone. He drew his racket back while planting his body
in perfect balance; his arm swung, shoulders rotated, and
his racket arched up through the ball and continued into a
follow-through. The ball seemed to shriek from the impact as
it sped bullet-fast toward the sideline. It scorched a pale
mark on the green court a half-inch from the white line. But
once again, it was the half-inch on the far side of the
line. The lineman’s hand flew up, and he yelled, “Out.”
Connor dropped his racket and blinked at the mark, obviously
not quite believing that he had lost another game.
Sweat dripped from his nose and chin.
He glanced at the chair umpire, attempting to coerce an
overrule, but the chair awarded the game to Connor’s
opponent.
Connor lifted the flap of his shirt, mopped his face, and
bent to pick up his racket.
Watching him from the bleachers, it occurred to me that he
must have dreamed about this match for most of his teenaged
life. He had begun the first game with all the charisma of a
champion poised for a run at brilliance, but the match had
mutated into his worst nightmare. No brilliance
materialized. Point by point, his entire being shriveled.
His confidence and composure evaporated.
There was nothing anyone could do to reverse his downward
spiral. I felt his frustration, a searing tightness in my
abdomen. I had experienced the same ordeal many times, and
even though half a decade had passed since then, I knew
precisely how he felt: like a man alone at thirty thousand
feet without a parachute. He was playing a quarterfinal
match on the show court of an ATP satellite tennis
tournament, set within the twisted pine forest between
Carmel and the craggy cliffs of Big Sur. Five hundred
shrieking, stomping fans packed the bleachers, and the
loudest of them was Connor’s father, who sat three rows
below me in the players’ section.
Cold fear. It first appeared in Connor’s eyes when he must
have realized that, without the help of divine intervention,
he would lose to a sixteen-year-old whose groundstrokes
resembled a caveman swinging a club. His fear visibly gave
birth to hatred, seething, and finally, humiliation. What
Connor’s eyes showed eventually revealed itself in his body
language. He looked like a pro tennis player—lean, agile
body, good legs, coffee-colored hair gathered into a
ponytail and covered with a ball-cap turned back to front,
and the prettiest almond-shaped eyes I’d ever seen—but his
slumped shoulders and marred facial expressions gave him
away. He was out of his league, and he knew it.
I mentally listed his technical problems with a practiced
eye. He had a decent first serve, but a weak, loopy second
serve that my aunt Betsy could wallop for a winner. And when
serving a critical point, his toss fell an inch or so
shorter than normal, making him hit down on the ball and
dump his serve into the net. He scrambled from side to side
with the fluid steps that produce great footwork, but he
seemed unsure of himself anywhere in front of the baseline,
and three volleys hacked into the net and a botched overhead
told me why.
Other than that, all his troubles lay between his ears. His
problems stemmed from impatience. Instead of working the
rallies while waiting for a weak ball to attack, he tried to
crush winners from a defensive position. He won enough
points to keep him pulling the trigger, but he also sprayed
enough balls long, wide, and into the net to lose every
game.
Nevertheless, even with his obvious technical and mental
issues, he was thrilling to watch. His grace, explosive
speed, and physical beauty sent chills up my spine. I was
not in love with him. How could I be? I had never even met
him. But I loved watching him play.
Connor lost the first set with a bagel, and his father
shrieked hysterically. At first, he directed his outburst at
Connor, telling the boy how to play, then at the opponent,
for not being good enough to be on the same court with his
son. The chair umpire notified security on his
walkie-talkie, and we all waited while two uniformed men
escorted Connor’s father from the bleachers. He screamed
obscenities all the way to the parking lot.
Connor sat through the whole scene crouched forward on his
bench with a white towel draped over his head. I would have
bet fifty bucks that tears were flowing under that towel,
but I doubt I would have found any takers.
Connor’s game continued to disintegrate through the second
set. After a heated argument with the chair umpire over a
questionable line call, he turned to flip the bird at a
heckling spectator and received a code of conduct warning
for “visible” obscenity. Two games later, another out call
had him tomahawking his racket and unleashing a screech. It
was a sound of pure anguish. I could only shake my head and
watch as that temperamental athlete, with the sublime
groundstrokes of a top-ten player, suffered a mental
meltdown in public view.
I longed to cradle him in my arms and explain that it was
only a game, that it should be fun. I wanted him to know
that he didn’t need to battle against the pressures that the
world threw at him, but he was in no condition to listen to
anybody, least of all a has-been like me.
In Connor’s last service game, while he waited for his
opponent to step to the baseline, he glanced into the
stands. We made eye contact for a dozen seconds, and he
looked right through me, as if to say, “Fuck you, you
know-it-all bastard. At least I’m down here, still in the
fight. What the fuck are you doing?” I saw something flicker
deep within those beautiful eyes, something more than
defiant pride. Or maybe I just chose to see. Even though his
emotions had run away with him, I saw his courage as clearly
as if he were holding up his heart like a metal shield.
I sucked in my breath and held it until he looked away.
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