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Tuesdays
are the days I showcase my work. Today I like to give you an excerpt of Match
Maker, my novel about gay professional tennis players struggling against homophobia
on tour.
I’m
very proud to say that Match Maker was voted best contemporary fiction novel at
the 2011 Rainbow Literary Awards.
My
favorite fan, Fausto Unamzor, made a
video trailer for Match Maker, so I thought I’d share: http://tinyurl.com/2ev95ds
Blurb:
In
the four years since being forced off the professional tour for being gay,
Daniel Bottega has taught tennis at a second-rate country club. He found a
sanctuary to hide from an unkind world, while his lover, Jared Stoderling,
fought a losing battle with alcohol addiction to cope with his disappointment
of not playing on the pro circuit.
Now
Daniel has another chance at the tour by coaching tennis prodigy Connor Lin to
a Grand Slam championship win. He shares his chance with Jared by convincing
him to return to the pro circuit as Connor’s doubles partner.
Competing
on the world tour is challenging enough, but Daniel and Jared also face major
media attention, political fallout from the pro association, and a shocking
amount of hate that threatens Connor’s career in tennis, Jared’s love for
Daniel, and Daniel’s very life.
Match
Maker
Dreamspinner
Press (Sept 2010)
To purchase: http://tinyurl.com/3qseap8
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.
Other
work by Alan Chin
Novels:
Island Song, The Lonely War, Simple Treasures, Butterfly’s Child
Screenplays:
Daddy’s Money, Simple Treasures, Flying Solo
http://tinyurl.com/d54rtd (Examiner.com
articles)
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