Rubber Match (Wally Wilson Mysteries Book 2) Kindle Edition

Rubber Match, an unusual tennis story in e-book by Marcus Paul Cootsona.
Plot: the reader is introduced to Wally Woodrow Wilson a 59-year-old tennis professional with his most attractive wife Danielle who are visiting colleges with their high school senior son Deuce who is quite adept at various form of magic and would prefer to try his hand in Las Vegas. They are accompanied by their red merle Australian Shepard, Rod Laver, the dog. They also have a daughter Addie who is in college and has a best friend, Ashley Margincall. Ashley is the daughter of an immensely rich parent who gives her huge amounts of money which apparently she employs in a highly successful entrepreneurial manner. From this point the story takes off to provide a tale of a stolen Dutch masterpiece painting, search for which involves Wally, his family and a host of other amusingly unconventional characters in a rambling story most prominently involving a remake of the format of the Davis Cup Tennis Tournament.
Discussion: The author is a highly regarded tennis professional and “lapsed playwright” with two other books and routine contributions to Tennis Magazine to his credit. His story here is an amusingly presented parody of tennis - and more specifically of the Davis Cup Format. Here he references the changing mentality of modern society. Tennis was begun in another era when life moved at a more leisurely pace. Today the average attention span of any millennial, the fastest growing group of consumers, has been found to be EIGHT SECONDS. Thus sports are increasingly being criticized for time consumed. Golf is ridiculous; 3 hours of football includes actual playing time of 11 minutes; baseball, 18 minutes; tennis time wise, probably is the best at 31 minutes of activity in 3 hours. An interesting example the author provides is the fact that Nadal takes as much as 45 seconds between shots compared with a match in 1969 between John Newcome (deceased Australia) and Rod Laver where time between shots routinely was clocked at 6 seconds. With respect to the flow of the story, it does so nicely except for some slightly annoying proofing errors more prominent in the later pages. Of particular interest and fascination to this reader was the author’s inclusion in this zany story of a deeper conviction: “96 % of the universe is dark matter. Nobody has seen it. Nobody may ever know how it works. That’s you.” You are controlled by destiny. “So, you can’t sit back and ask destiny to do its worst. Because it will. And nothing will happen. At least nothing good. You have to participate. With faith. And with goodwill. And without expectation. The way to be in control is to make a decision. Even if it seems risky.” A most thoughtful suggestion.

California author Marcus Paul Cootsona has three novels to his credit thus far – OCCAM’S RACQUET: 12 SIMPLE STEPS TO SMARTER TENNIS, SLAMMIN’ and now RUBBER MATCH. It is no surprise he is a tennis teaching professional. He also is a member of the Wilson Advisory Staff and has been three times named "Tennis Specialty Retailer of the Year". That he also happens to possess a polished sense of humor is evident from his previous books as well as the opening of his current novel.

Marcus’s bio states he is a lapsed playwright a fact that some how helps us jump into the style of razor sharp, richly atmospheric and intelligent prose that fills every page of this book. For example, try this opening page – ‘Three clotted freeways and one toney toll road in the rear view, Wally Wilson and his wife Danielle were about an hour out of la heading south on i-5 at or near the posted on a hot August day. Their 2003 Honda Odyssey ex minivan with onboard navigation and a hundred and sixty grand on the meter was paddling along like a salt-whipped sloop, determined to stay afloat purely out of age and stubbornness. Seventeen year-old Deuce Wilson shared the backseat with their red merle Australian Shepard, Rod Laver the Dog, and was palming, finger-rolling, and vanishing Susan B’s. A lone playing card floated benignly in the air to his right. Deuce had been quiet since Bixby Knolls, but teenage wheels were turning. Just past the San Onofre nuclear plant he spoke. “Why can’t I be an autodidact?” he asked, in his almost-Joseph- Gordon-Levitt voice. The JGL, incidentally, from ‘Looper’ not ‘Brick’. “An auto-deduct?” said Wally. “An autodidact,” he said. “A self-taught person.” Family interaction, contemporary conversation topics, and a keen play on words are such a welcome treat in a novel we expect to be just another tennis novel!

Marcus teases us with an occult synopsis: ‘Fifty-nine year-old Atherton tennis teaching pro and family man Wally Wilson won the 2011 U.S. Open behind 250 mph serves and a timely disqualification, and was promptly banned from professional tennis. Two years later, Wally is picked to play Davis Cup, framed for stealing a Dutch masterwork, and hunted by obsessive-compulsive Mounties. There goes his nap.’

This story loops through gyrations in a manner that even adds conspiracy twists to the pot along with the very zesty realities and misconceptions of generational gaps. But a bit more from the text – ‘Each day when he arrived at American Compound court four, he encountered some new and seemingly irrelevant obstacle set up for him by Bump Key and Arqane. Tuesday, he served from a tilted raised platform. Wednesday, in extreme wind. Thursday, in airport runway decibel noise. And Friday, over a five-foot net. What was the deal? D Cup crowds were known to be rowdy and loud, but they had never tilted the court, summoned a hurricane, or raised the net by two feet, at least that he could remember. Besides, he was a teaching pro who’d also played in the juniors. There was no weird stroke or court condition he hadn’t seen. He could deal with any of it. His under-practiced strokes could stay undistinguished in any situation. So, he went about his business and served his three thousand serves in each day and managed to get his consistency to eighty percent in every odd condition. That small triumph, an Epicurean’s acceptance of Addie’s latest inspiration bombshell, and a willing surrender to Danielle’s new career, and he figured that he’d he covered the silt shiftings.’

Bravado accomplishment in writing, this. Now, if only his plays were accessible …..Grady Harp, October 16

It is easy to think of the novel rubber Match as a journey into the improbable. It centers on a former tennis pro and US Open winner, Wally Wilson, now a teaching pro, who surprisingly gets the call to represent the USA in the Davis Cup. Unfortunately for Wally, with 60 gaining on him fast, he feels past his prime, but a convergence of circumstances makes it difficult for him to refuse.

The story starts with the most mundane of settings, with Wally, his wife Danielle and their son Deuce taking a trip to look at colleges. The battle of wills that ensues offers the first glimpse of the humor that Cootsona so effectively infuses into the story.

Chock full of cultural references and brimming with engaging dialogue, Rubber Match is a story that you are not likely to forget. The author uses many familiar names from the world of tennis, but it is the other characters who propel the story. With Wally and his family caught up in a mystery, you will see that there is more at stake than just the biggest tennis match of his life.

This could easily have gotten a 4.5 stars if I knew how to give that rating.