The Tennis Player
Kent Nelson’s debut collection, The Tennis Player, introduces readers to a writer with a remarkable ability to capture the subtle complexities of everyday life. In the title story, Nicky is a good tennis player but is weary of games and the expectations of others. In “Looking Into Nothing,” a story included in The Best American Short Stories, a man sits alone all night on the top of a cliff talking to a boy he thinks is below in the canyon. Other stories include one involving a New Mexican Penitente’s being chosen as the Christ in a ritual crucifixion, another about a man who walks home from several hundred miles away, and, “The Humpbacked Bird,” in which two men search for a girl lost in the wilderness of Big Bend, Texas. These meticulously crafted tales explore the quiet dramas that occur in the lives of ordinary people and reveal their unspoken disappointments, hopes, and longings.
“Every point, every game, every match was a small negotiation with destiny, a brief, precise dance of effort and fate.”
“These are the same colors that turned me crazy, a river of paint, and in this dream of hues, I run beside it, wanting to stop the river of colors and hold it.”
“Nelson’s second collection (The Tennis Player, 1977) is strong on place, especially the American Southwest. The best of the 13 stories here are heartbreakers about people who learn to understand that the world is not circumscribed by their prejudices or limitations... Most of these pieces work at a slant so that situation and setting are integral to character. A fine collection, as outstanding and various as Christopher Tilghman’s acclaimed In A Father’s Place. ”
University of Illinois Press, 1971