Mikey makes everything a joke, even the clinical depression he’s struggled with for years. After a run of failed jobs, he becomes the unlikely basketball coach at a high school for high-risk offenders who are experiencing mental illness. The position becomes suddenly available after the team tried to strangle their last coach. Every instinct tells Mikey to get as far away from this school as possible. Coaching these kids, who have been arrested for who-knows-what, would be difficult for a normie. For Mikey, it could cause another breakdown and force him right back to living on the street. But he knows that if he has any chance to make his twenty-sixth birthday, he needs to keep this job, even if the school board wants him fired, and the students would rather fight each other than play ball. This poignant, hilarious, and sometimes uncomfortable novel proves that even the most damaged of us can emerge victorious.
“Head Fake is about how laughter can save us. It’s a jab in the ribs, reminding us that even in our worst hour, laughter and connection can be the flashlight in the dark, guiding us toward healing and redemption.” —Chris Rock, comedian, actor
Scott Gordon’s debut novel finds humor in heartache. The same tenacious clinical depression that landed Mikey Cannon in Friedman Psychiatric Hospital several times as a teenager ultimately left him unemployed and living on the streets as a 25-year-old. Out of options, Mikey asks his estranged father for help. His father grudgingly allows Mikey to move back in his childhood room and uses his connections to get Mikey a job interview at a school for juvenile offenders with mental illnesses. To his surprise, Mikey is hired as a bus driver and soon tasked with coaching the school’s struggling basketball team. The team has a host of problems: there’s no gym, no uniforms, and each of its five players struggles with severe psychological hardships. Readers should be aware that though Gordon approaches these sensitive topics with deep empathy, scenes depicting self-harm, psychotic breaks, suicidality and other traumas are unflinching. But as Mikey struggles to connect with his players, he relies on his old “CM,” or coping mechanism: humor. Despite its heavy subject matter, the book is full of genuine laugh-out-loud moments, not just from Mikey’s frequent wisecracks but also the team’s antics as they forge unlikely bonds that help them cope with the heartbreaking challenges they face at school, at home, and within their own minds.
Gordon’s precise, detailed writing not only brings each character's inner world into sharp relief, it also captures the team’s growth on the court. Basketball fans will love the fast-paced descriptions of the games’ shots, blocks, screens and strategies. As the team starts to experience some unexpected success, Mikey’s jubilation is tempered by his ongoing struggles with his father and the ever-present psychological conditions that threaten his players’ mental health and his own. This persistently honest look at the difficult realities of mental illness avoids any sugar coating but still offers an uplifting tale full of warmth and humor.
Takeaway: Funny, honest story of teamwork in the face of mental illness.
Comparable Titles:Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding, Mark Stevens’s The Fireballer.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
This debut novel sees an erstwhile homeless man with a history of depression become the basketball coach at a school for mentally ill juvenile offenders.Mikey Cannon grew up in a racially diverse stretch of Los Angeles and played basketball in games where he was “the only white boy” (“I could set up plays like a pro”). Mikey was 15 years old when his mom died. A year later, he entered the Friedman Psychiatric Hospital suffering severe depression—a condition exacerbated by his dad’s tough love. His dad, a decorated high school basketball coach, considered Mikey his great disappointment. Now, at 25, Mikey has weathered two more hospital stints and spent several years living on the streets. His dad has grudgingly taken him back in, but only if Mikey can hold down a job—as a bus driver at Mary Friedman Alternative High School, an institution attached to the hospital that caters to juvenile offenders. As Mikey drives his bus, he comes to appreciate how much the kids have stacked against them. When circumstances leave him in charge of the basketball team, he sees an opportunity to give them something good in their lives and expunge some of his personal demons. Can Mikey save them through basketball? Gordon writes in the first person, past tense, from Mikey’s perspective, crafting a story much in the vein of the film Stand and Deliver,only more acute. Unlike the movie’s math teacher protagonist played by Edward James Olmos, Mikey is an underdog, and his team is disadvantaged by more than its socioeconomic background. The author’s exploration of mental illness is fearless and without artifice, portraying not only the debilitating effects on those afflicted, but also the trepidation, helplessness, anger, neglect, scorn, and occasional love returned to them by family and strangers. Mikey is an engaging protagonist, and all of his charges emerge as distinct characters. Even stock figures like Mikey’s dad have depth beyond their narrative functions. Throughout, Gordon narrates events in clear, accomplished prose that captures the voice and heart of each player. Readers will find themselves caught up in the journey, cheering for Mikey and his team. The ending, though verging on the saccharine, is extremely well played.An absorbing, uplifting tale of finding light and self-worth in adversity’s darkest depths.
