When Dave Fromm graduated from college with good grades and high LSAT scores, he planned to apply to law school. But he actually wasn't that sure he wanted to go, at least not right away. A few years earlier, he'd been to Prague for a vacation and played a game of pickup basketball there. He was a decent basketball player, though not good enough to make the team at Boston College either time he'd tried out. So he did the kind of thing we'd all do if we had the guts (and a foolhardy sense of determination)--he moved to Prague to play basketball, even though he didn't speak Czech, or know anyone in Prague, or if the Czechs had basketball leagues there, much less professional leagues, still less if they let foreigners play. Expatriate Games is Dave Fromm's touching and amusing memoir of the year (1994) he spent playing basketball for a Czech semi-pro team. Throughout, Fromm, a self-proclaimed "gym-rat," struggles with his teammates, the European style of play, and the language barrier. But miraculously, Fromm describes how, despite the struggles, the team came together, a girl appeared, and he was introduced to a side of Prague most foreigners can't see--a Prague full of ghosts and back alleys and a people simultaneously embracing and reeling from transition. if he were a slow-footed, non-jumping, pump-faking point guard from Massachusetts who took his game to Prague on a dare to himself. Of hmmm, hard, but writes like a comic genius. --Will Blythe, author of To Hate Like This is To Be Happy ForeverIn his first book, lawyer and pro basketballer wannabe Fromm offers an entertaining and often hilarious account of his year in Prague playing point guard in a semipro league and attending political science courses at Central European University. Fromm was 23 years old and admits that he was unready for law school or the demands of full-time employment. So instead, in the fall of 1994, he embarked on a thoroughly unplanned trip to a country he barely knew, with somehow stumbled upon a league and a team, and while struggling to learn Czech and Czech customs, get along with his teammates, and earn a degree, Fromm found love, or what he first thought was love. Fromm recounts his adventures with candor and self-deprecating humor, crafting a modest, worthwhile book about discovering yourself and following your passions. The lengthy and numerous basketball game recaps can grow tiresome, but this is an otherwise brisk and breezy read. Recommended for public libraries. A young American learns invaluable life lessons through basketball.
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