Catch

You may remember Will Leitch, the Deadspin blogger whose scathing anti-everyone-involved-with-sports set of essays, God Save the Fan I reviewed just a few months ago. Not content with opinion pieces, Leitch decided to move into fiction, his first foray being Catch. Catch is... basically what I thought it would be. I imagine if one of my friends decided to write the great American novel and worked really hard at it, it would end up being something like Catch. It's the story of a young man in the summer after graduation from high school who struggles to figure out where he belongs in the world. He's smart-alecky, womanizing, and talks a lot about Cardinals baseball and other pop culture. You can't blame Leitch; for his first book he certainly stuck to what he knew. Who didn't feel a bit conflicted before heading off to college? Everyone's had the dueling arguments of But all my friends are in my hometown vs. This place is boring as shit, so it's easy to relate. The problem is, in the end Leitch doesn't really say anything too noteworthy, he's simply interested in pulling on nostalgic heartstrings. The characters reminisce about all their random funny times, they realize how much they will miss their families, they start up relationships that they know are doomed to fail because of college's looming presence. And in the end they come to the same conclusion that most everyone else does, that it's time to move on and see what else the world has for them. At times this made me reflect on my last few months of high school (I never really spent many summers in Westford), but it's hard to call that an accomplishment on Leitch's part- I'll bet this half-assed post has gotten its readers to think back on "simpler times" as well. So hey, he didn't quite knock it out of the park, but Leitch at least has set a decent bar with his first piece of fiction and could maybe create something really interesting if he just set his sights a little higher.