Sonny is a freshman basketball standout on the #1 college team in the nation. His whole life is about basketball: the practices, the games, and his teammates, although he's not a reporter's favorite at press conferences. He reconnects with Erika, his middle-aged cousin and art professor at the college who offers him a one-credit independent study when his eligibility is in danger. Erika cares nothing about basketball or jock culture and it's through her that Sonny sees life outside of basketball. At book's end Sonny chops his fingers off an in accident and his basketball career is over. The sexual tension between Sonny and his cousin was strange. Didn't quite get what Sonny's issue is with basketball; where's the indifference coming from?