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North Dallas Forty #2
I mastini di Dallas
Twenty years after North Dallas's championship, the gridiron gang--quarterback Seth Maxwell, a movie star; Jo Bob Williams, sheriff of Purgatory County; B.A., ex-coach-turned governor; and one-time receiver Phil Elliot--returns to celebrate
382 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
93 people want to read
About the author
Peter Gent
10 books8 followersGeorge Davis Peter Gent was a Michigan State University basketball player and National Football League wide receiver turned novelist.
After leaving professional football, Gent wrote several novels dealing with the sport. His first and most famous book, a semi-autobiographical novel entitled North Dallas Forty, was published in 1973. Its main characters, a quarterback and a wide receiver, are widely considered to be based on Don Meredith and Gent, respectively. The novel was one of the first to examine the NFL's hypocrisy regarding drug use.
Gent made his home in Texas for many years, where he was friends with many of that state's significant creative minds of the day, including Larry L. King, Billy Lee Brammer, Gary Cartwright, Bud Shrake, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Dan Jenkins. They called themselves the Mad Dogs.
Gent also explored the corruption in modern professional sports in a sequel volume entitled "North Dallas After 40", published in 1989, and in two unrelated football novels — "Texas Celebrity Turkey Trot" (1979) and "The Franchise" (1983).
Gent also wrote a novel about college basketball entitled " The Conquering Heroes" (1994). Bill Walton’s cover blurb states that the book is the "North Dallas Forty of college basketball. But it’s much more, it’s about a whole generation of kids who came of age in an America that I grew up in."
Gent resided in Bangor, Michigan at the time of his death from a pulmonary disease on September 30, 2011,and was working on a novel.
After leaving professional football, Gent wrote several novels dealing with the sport. His first and most famous book, a semi-autobiographical novel entitled North Dallas Forty, was published in 1973. Its main characters, a quarterback and a wide receiver, are widely considered to be based on Don Meredith and Gent, respectively. The novel was one of the first to examine the NFL's hypocrisy regarding drug use.
Gent made his home in Texas for many years, where he was friends with many of that state's significant creative minds of the day, including Larry L. King, Billy Lee Brammer, Gary Cartwright, Bud Shrake, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Dan Jenkins. They called themselves the Mad Dogs.
Gent also explored the corruption in modern professional sports in a sequel volume entitled "North Dallas After 40", published in 1989, and in two unrelated football novels — "Texas Celebrity Turkey Trot" (1979) and "The Franchise" (1983).
Gent also wrote a novel about college basketball entitled " The Conquering Heroes" (1994). Bill Walton’s cover blurb states that the book is the "North Dallas Forty of college basketball. But it’s much more, it’s about a whole generation of kids who came of age in an America that I grew up in."
Gent resided in Bangor, Michigan at the time of his death from a pulmonary disease on September 30, 2011,and was working on a novel.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 16, 2015
** Here Be Spoilers **
On the reunion of the first North Dallas Bulls championship team, the old gang gets back together for the event. Phil Elliott and Delma Huddle both have to get out of jail to attend, B.A. takes time off from his duties as Texas Governor while Seth Maxwell does the same from his hit western TV show. And the shady characters in the background of the first book are now powerful political and real estate dealers that play out their lives, personal and professional, like three-card-Monty dealers and the various threads of the various plotlines all collide into a huge finale that i'm surprised hasn't been made into a movie yet.
We are also treated to flashbacks of Phil's first training camp and season with the Bulls and the development of his friendship with Maxwell along with the rise of B.A.'s complex offense perfect for the skills of Maxwell, Elliott, and Huddle. We also see Elliott's beginnings of problems as he goes against the grain at the beginning of his career as a player and the beginning of his post-player career as a novelist.
In many ways, this is a better-written novel than the first just because of Gent's experience since that first blockbuster. But it does lack the raw edge of the first book that makes it light up, chapter after chapter.
Read back-to-back, it makes for a great weekend read and reaquaintance with some well-loved characters.
On the reunion of the first North Dallas Bulls championship team, the old gang gets back together for the event. Phil Elliott and Delma Huddle both have to get out of jail to attend, B.A. takes time off from his duties as Texas Governor while Seth Maxwell does the same from his hit western TV show. And the shady characters in the background of the first book are now powerful political and real estate dealers that play out their lives, personal and professional, like three-card-Monty dealers and the various threads of the various plotlines all collide into a huge finale that i'm surprised hasn't been made into a movie yet.
We are also treated to flashbacks of Phil's first training camp and season with the Bulls and the development of his friendship with Maxwell along with the rise of B.A.'s complex offense perfect for the skills of Maxwell, Elliott, and Huddle. We also see Elliott's beginnings of problems as he goes against the grain at the beginning of his career as a player and the beginning of his post-player career as a novelist.
In many ways, this is a better-written novel than the first just because of Gent's experience since that first blockbuster. But it does lack the raw edge of the first book that makes it light up, chapter after chapter.
Read back-to-back, it makes for a great weekend read and reaquaintance with some well-loved characters.
November 7, 2013
Meh. I've read Peter Gent before and liked him. Not this time. It had the plot of a phone book and the character development of a stop sign -- which you should obey when you see the book on the shelf. Ick.
July 22, 2024
"People want to read about how bad you famous jocks are at real life.... They want to read about successful people whose lives have gone to shit."
I haven't read North Dallas Forty, so I can't compare this one to its predecessor, but I do recall enough bits and pieces of the movie adaptation to've read this one picturing Mac Davis and Nick Nolte in two of the leading roles. The teeming cast of this book, though, seems to have an NFL's worth of characters, and only a handful are what anyone would think of as good or honorable. Protagonist Phil Elliott--clearly a semiautobiographical stand-in for Peter Gent--is likable enough and smarter than the rest but also, now at age 47, long since broken down physically and in the midst of a convoluted plot that involves drug smugglers, gun runners, crooked real estate developments, bank fraud, conspiracies to extort, murder, border and immigration issues, and political intrigue in general. As a relief to all that, Gent throws in occasional "Then" chapters, providing flashbacks to Elliott's rookie season in 1964 and the years following that led up to the Dallas football team becoming league champions, and those installments are more fun--what I'm assuming was more the stuff of the first book, showing Gent clearly knows his way around and inside the grid iron. Together, this book's "Then" and "Now" sections (the latter also focused on the Dallas team's 20-year reunion celebrating the anniversary of its first championship) feature ample violence at every turn, both on and off the field. The "deus ex maelstrom" ending is weak, though.
First line:
"Phil Elliott was excited and tense as he stepped around the corner and down into Charlotte Caulder's den."
February 3, 2020
Today is the Super Bowl. (I dont know which number it is - I could careless, to be honest).
As the nation sits down, with their chicken wings, chips and salsa, beers and shots, and everything else, they will cheer, in my opinion, a group of over paid people to run around for a few hours, and watch some expensive ads.
Me, I am going the opposite route - I sat down, to read and finish my book. To keep with the theme, I did choose one about football. Well, I thought it was going to be about football.
"North Dallas Forty' was about football- well, the behind the scenes things involving football.
But this book surprised me. Many of the players from the first book are back- the team is having a reunion of sorts and the surviving players are back. Much has changed since the book- some players made it big, some went into other fields, and some are checking out. Even the coach staff has gone on to bigger things too. (Image if Tom Laundry had retired in 1990 and gone on to be Governor of Texas).
But while the characters are involved in football, the plot is more of a thriller-feel. Back Deals - both finance, criminal, and drug trafficking. Hit lists and attempted murderers. Government sponser militia. Yeah, all the things that are OPPOSITE a book about football.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book. It is VERY Dated - written over 30 years ago- but it is still timeless, in the way the story plays out.
As the nation sits down, with their chicken wings, chips and salsa, beers and shots, and everything else, they will cheer, in my opinion, a group of over paid people to run around for a few hours, and watch some expensive ads.
Me, I am going the opposite route - I sat down, to read and finish my book. To keep with the theme, I did choose one about football. Well, I thought it was going to be about football.
"North Dallas Forty' was about football- well, the behind the scenes things involving football.
But this book surprised me. Many of the players from the first book are back- the team is having a reunion of sorts and the surviving players are back. Much has changed since the book- some players made it big, some went into other fields, and some are checking out. Even the coach staff has gone on to bigger things too. (Image if Tom Laundry had retired in 1990 and gone on to be Governor of Texas).
But while the characters are involved in football, the plot is more of a thriller-feel. Back Deals - both finance, criminal, and drug trafficking. Hit lists and attempted murderers. Government sponser militia. Yeah, all the things that are OPPOSITE a book about football.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book. It is VERY Dated - written over 30 years ago- but it is still timeless, in the way the story plays out.
January 3, 2019
Oh boy. High crimes and international politics during the 20th reunion of the first Dallas Championship team! Some scenes are too absurd to be believed.
October 4, 2019
Una perla rara.
L'atmosfera pulp, i dialoghi secchi e diretti, il football raccontato in maniera schietta, un protagonista sublime, un finale devastante.
L'atmosfera pulp, i dialoghi secchi e diretti, il football raccontato in maniera schietta, un protagonista sublime, un finale devastante.
December 6, 2020
Read in 1990. The follow up to the original 20 years later finds many of the players out of the game.
January 20, 2024
Did he have a cyrstal ball ..... outrageous fun weird enjoyable ...... warped.... an fun act of heresy.
May 2, 2012
Having enjoyed both North Dallas 40 and other titles by Peter Gent, I was surprised to find this particular title somewhat lacking. Of course, it is a reprisal of the characters we met in the original ND40 but quite a few years have passed and the lives of the main characters are not quite the same as they were. I would have prefered if the last impression we had of them would have been from ND40. The follow up wasn't needed. (originally posted on Amazon.com)
October 20, 2007
A rare instance were I liked the sequel better than the original.
June 26, 2010
6-26-2010.....I don't know what the deal is here with "After"....Is this a reedition or a revision ?
July 7, 2011
Liked it better than the original. Very well written and the story is engaging and entertaining.
March 11, 2013
Ames me want to pull my kids out of any sport they could go professional in.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews