Is This the Strangest Soccer Novel Ever Written?

Over the years, writers from around the world have tried their hands at using soccer as a backdrop for memorable fiction. Tonally speaking, they cover a vast terrain, including J.L. Carr’s comic How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A. Cup and Leonard Gribble’s whodunit The Arsenal Stadium Mystery. Some will cut more deeply for soccer fans of a literary bent; others can be savored no matter what your feelings about the beautiful game might be. David Peace’s modernist Red or Dead, about the life of the legendary Liverpool coach Bill Shankly, left me frequently breathless despite having little emotional investment in the ups and downs of Liverpool.