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dominic's review
funny
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Geoff Lemon's reflection on the summer of 2019, and the comeback stories of Ben Stokes, Steve Smith and David Warner, is part-reporting, part-memoir and part-analysis of the concept of redemption in sport. I found the latter two topics more interesting. Lemon positioned himself as a character in the story, giving background about how a scruffy poet ended up reporting on the biggest stage in cricket. His analysis of redemption, in which he dived into how sports stars skip key steps of the redemption arc (e.g. acknowledging the error of judgement, and proportionate penance for it) by returning to the stage and resuming where they left off, was also a highlight as Lemon takes a more nuanced approach to this topic than 99% of the sports media. So, overall an entertaining and interesting read, but I wasn't quite as excited by the descriptions of Stokes's Miracle at Headingley as I might have been if I hadn't watched the highlights 135 times.
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