Secular religions are fascinating in the devotion and zealousness they breed, and in Texas, high school football has its own rabid hold over the faithful. H.G. Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, enters into the spirit of one of its most fervent shrines: Odessa, a city in decline in the desert of West Texas, where the Permian High School Panthers have managed to compile the winningest record in state annals. Indeed, as this breathtaking examination of the town, the team, its coaches, and its young players chronicles, the team, for better and for worse, is the town; the communal health and self-image of the latter is directly linked to the on-field success of the former. The 1988 season, the one Friday Night Lights recounts, was not one of the Panthers' best. The game's effect on the community--and the players--was explosive. Written with great style and passion, Friday Night Lights offers an American snapshot in deep focus; the picture is not always pretty, but the image is hard to forget.


From Publishers Weekly
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bissinger spent 1988 in Odessa, Tex., a town obsessed with its champion high-school football team, the Permian Panthers. PW called this a "superb, if disquieting, portrait of heartland America." Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In 1988, Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Philadelphia Inquirer editor, left his job to spend a year with a high school sports team. The sport he picked was football, the location, the depressed West Texas oil town of Odessa, called by Larry McMurtry "the worst town on earth." Here 20,000 fans turn out regularly to watch their Permian Panthers win. Here there is no high-blown talk of playing the game well; just the raw need to win at all costs. In this atmosphere, players vomit from nervousness before each game and often play with injuries. On the few occasions when the team suffers a loss, the coach's front lawn sprouts "For Sale" signs. Bissinger makes you feel the tensions of the kids, who are not just playing a game, but literally fighting for the honor of their town. He also accomplishes the more difficult feat of making the team's rabid fans sympathetic. His language sometimes verges on the overblown, but it does echo the mythical proportions of the game and a season that will render the rest of the players' lives a dull denouement. Fascinating even for those, or maybe especially for those, with no interest in football.- Nora Rawlinson, "Library Journal"Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

H. G. Bissinger's exquisitely written account brings into sharp focus the bitter struggle between sports and education in Odessa, Texas, as well as in high schools and colleges nationwide.

"A biting indictment of the sports craziness that grips...most of American society, while at the same time providing a moving evocation of its powerful allure."(--New York Times Book Review)

"A remarkable book, fascinating from start to finish, full of surprises."(--David HalberstamA)

"An engrossing story...Exciting, funny and, above all, horrifying."(--Tracy KidderA)

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times Book Review