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New York Times
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
In This Queer Sports Novel, Basketball Is Both Desire and Destruction
In his 2024 book 'There's Always This Year,' the writer Hanif Abdurraqib describes tempering his friends' optimism as the Cleveland Cavaliers headed into Game 5 of the N.B.A. finals. The team was down 3-1, and though his fellow Cavs fans were holding out for a comeback, Abdurraqib had already accepted defeat. 'I prefer being accelerated to the front row of my undoing,' he writes. That line hovered in my mind as I read 'A Sharp Endless Need,' the second novel by Marisa Crane (who now goes by Mac), not only because Abdurraqib is quoted in the book's epigraph, or because both authors write (deftly, ruinously) about basketball. The echo was in the self-conviction: the athlete and the fan, chasing the game to exquisite heartbreak. 'A Sharp Endless Need' follows the star point guard Mack Morris, a high school senior in small-town Pennsylvania in 2004. Reeling after the sudden death of her father and hounded by college scouts, Mack is primed for disaster when a transfer student, Liv Cooper, joins her team as shooting guard. The two instantly become enmeshed, both on and off the court, in the kind of obsessive, ravenous friendship that only two closeted teenagers could have. The question is whether the relationship will send Mack to new heights or fuel her devastation. In a tight 250 pages, Crane's writing drives forward hard and fast. They mix their staccato sentences with strategic bursts of tender lyricism. Crane, who played college ball, describes Mack's games with an insider's fluency, bringing readers into the minute-by-minute drama on the court. But knowledge of the sport isn't required to understand the novel; all you need is a familiarity with loving something to the point of pain. 'As long as I had the game, I would be OK,' Mack thinks. 'There would be a place for me that existed outside of human curses like attraction and desire.' These human curses, along with scourges of disappointment and unrealized selves, fill Mack's world, from washed-up coaches and dissatisfied parents to teenagers wrestling with forbidden wants. In Crane's hands, Mack's account of this confusing period as a teenager is deeply affecting: She's too consumed with the brightness and immediacy of Liv to engage with her deeper wounds. She chases away her anxiety with alcohol, drugs and punishing drills, careening toward everything but what she wants most intimately. She watches longing unravel everyone around her, and she keeps playing, funneling her frustration into the game, accelerating to her own undoing. From the front row, we can't tear our eyes from the vortex of passion between Mack and Liv. As Crane writes it, sports are a vessel for desire. They're erotic, an excuse to shield lust and the means by which it's played out. On the court, Mack and Liv have the unstoppable chemistry of two ambitious athletes whose greatness coaxes out the best in each other. Outside the game, they toe the line between friendship and something more, with their locker room showers and ice baths and late-night AIM conversations. Together they're vital, insatiable, inseparable, undeniable, yet always avoiding the truth of their attraction. We keep watching them because, like any devoted sports lover, we can't help wondering if they might pull out a win. But Crane's final play is an unexpectedly hopeful question: Is losing really the end? Most of the book focuses on the misery and destruction of desire, but despite its title, 'A Sharp Endless Need' offers the possibility that unsatisfied wanting does not always have to cut and curse, at least not endlessly. We give it the power to destroy us when we deny it or repress it. Maybe, with time and understanding, unmet desire can simply be an L in the column. Good game.
Geek Girl Authority
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Girl Authority
Book Review: A SHARP ENDLESS NEED
Thank you to The Dial Press for sending me a copy of A Sharp Endless Need in exchange for an honest review. A Sharp Endless Need by Marisa Crane Star point guard Mack Morris starts her senior year reeling from two life-changing events: her father's sudden death and the arrival of Liv Cooper, a talented transfer student with whom she shares undeniable chemistry – on and off the court. In their conservative 2004 Pennsylvania town, their deepening connection sparks more than just controversy. As grief, desire, and pressure mount, Mack must navigate the volatile space between who she was and who she's becoming. Is she ready to fight for the future she wants, even if it means leaving everything else behind? RELATED: Book Review: I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself I read Marisa Crane's debut I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself when it came out in 2023, and it blew me away. A Sharp Endless Need is so different from their first novel, yet it feels like a perfect successor. Yes, it's about teen basketball prodigies and not a speculative, dystopian future. The themes and writing style, however, make for an entirely cohesive body of work. This coming-of-age novel is a poetic, rich and sharply written narrative of a queer person seeking purpose in their life. It's about ambition and obsession, and reads like a slow-motion train wreck that you can't look away from. Part Reflection, Part Retelling Part of A Sharp Endless Need 's success comes from Crane's decision to have Mack narrate the novel from some point in the future. She's looking back with wisdom on her teen years. While she doesn't seem to regret her decisions, she does comment on what she wishes she had known as a teen. This stylistic choice results in a story that's part reflection and part retelling, one in which the reader is intimately involved. RELATED: 8 Books A League of Their Own Fans Have to Read In case you were wondering, you don't have to know a lot about basketball to enjoy this book. Crane clearly does, and their passion for the game shines through. However, that passion, along with the intensity of high school life, allows readers who don't know the sport well to appreciate Mack's obsessive journey. Set against the backdrop of small-town Pennsylvania, A Sharp Endless Need combines sharp, exhilarating sports writing with a raw, heartfelt exploration of grief, identity and the choices that shape us. It's both a poignant coming-of-age novel and a love letter to basketball, perfect for anyone who has struggled to find their purpose. A Sharp Endless Need comes out on May 13. It's available for preorder now from your local independent bookstore or TW: addiction, alcohol/alchoholism, biphobia, bullying, car accident, death of a parent, drug use/abuse, dysphoria, emotional abuse, grief, homophobia, injury/injury detail, lesbophobia, self-harm, sexual assault, sexual content, suicidal thoughts 7 Great Movies and TV Shows Celebrating Women in Sports
