The Sidekick

ONE OF THIS WEEK'S BEST NOVELS OF 2022 The perfect novel for fans of The Last Dance, Hoop Dreams and Winning Time 'Exquisite. . . Warm, humane, and tragic.' JONATHAN LETHEM At his high school basketball try-outs, nerdy sports-obsessed Brian Blum meets new kid Marcus Hayes. As a sportswriter, Brian spends the following twenty years tracking his friends' superstar NBA career. But when Marcus mounts his last dance comeback, after a couple of years out of the game, both men must face the tensions of their unlikely dynamic, and the disappointments of getting older. 'There is something so compelling about the questions of whether these two friends, despite their fraught history and hefty egos, will rekindle a genuine connection . . . you'll want to know how the game turns out.' TLS 'Compelling and emotionally resonant.' Spectator 'Contemporary fiction's best kept secret . . . It's gratifying to observe someone with a large amount of specific knowledge not only imparting that expertise, but unlocking some deeper meaning within it, like a top sports star working their magic.' Sunday Business Post

Benjamin Markovits grew up in Texas, London and Berlin. He is the author of eleven novels, including Either Side of Winter, You Don't Have To Live Like This, and Christmas in Austin. He has published essays, stories, poetry and reviews on subjects ranging from the Romantics to American sports in the Guardian, Granta, The Paris Review and The New York Times, among others. In 2013 Granta selected him as one of their Best of Young British Novelists and in 2015 he won the Eccles British Library Writer in Residence Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He lives in London and teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.