Book Review: Year of the Puffin

IndieBookView

Dec 19

Year of the Puffin

by Gregory Phipps

Genre: Fiction / Sports

ISBN: 9781639889211

Print Length: 320 pages

Publisher: Atmosphere Press

Reviewed by Nick Rees Gardner

Gregory Phipps' Year of the Puffin focuses on the lives of Tommie Gatz, the university's athletic director; Gwen Arnheim the coach; and the two quarterbacks, Lambert Slusher and Dorian Stark IV. As The Puffins strive toward a record-breaking season, Phipps shifts focus from one to another of these four characters as they deal with death, love, and heartbreak in their own offbeat ways. Year of the Puffin carries all the tension of a neck-and-neck football game through the personal dramas of its characters, a demonstration of how a winning season occurs both on and off the field.

Gwen Arnheim is a Canadian who moved to Iceland to become the only female coach of a Division II male football team. It is post-pandemic, the country is reawakening, and Gwen and athletic director Tommie Gatz are gearing up for a winning season. Everything changes when Tommie suggests that Gwen utilize a play called the Wishbone. Though outdated, the play just might work, but only if Gwen pulls the team leader, Lambert Slusher, and replaces him with her second string QB, Dorian Stark.

Gwen also doesn't know that Tommie has a slush fund he's been using to recruit players from US schools. As the season rolls on in a series of exciting games in both the US and Iceland, more secrets emerge. Dorian's mental health flags beneath the pressure of his double life, and Lambert's frustration with his decreased playing time is exacerbated by his history of growing up in a cult and his current problems with a girlfriend he has never met. Add to this already illustrious cast of characters a lazy maintenance man who ignores his phone calls, a sports anchor who wants to uncover the personal lives of the players, and the son of a former president, and you have Year of the Puffin, an offbeat and beautifully place-driven dive into the lives of the most unlikely sports team you've ever witnessed. Win or lose, the season will be wild.