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Semi-Tough: A Novel by Dan Jenkins
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Semi-Tough: A Novel (original 1972; edition 2006)

by Dan Jenkins

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2174124,464 (3.71)16
"Dan Jenkins is a comic genius."--Don Imus Made into a hilarious and timeless film starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, and Jill Clayburgh, and recently named number seven on Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time, Semi-Tough is Dan Jenkins's masterpiece and considered by many to be the funniest sports book ever written. The novel follows the outsize adventures of Billy Clyde Puckett, star halfback for the New York Giants, whose team has come to Los Angeles for an epic duel with the despised "dog-ass" Jets in the Super Bowl. But Billy Clyde is faced with a dual challenge: not only must he try to run over a bunch of malevolents incarnate, but he has also been commissioned by a New York book publisher to keep a journal of the events leading up to, including, and following the game. Infused with Dan Jenkins's characteristic joie de vivre and replete with cigarettes, whiskey, and wild women, Semi-Tough is an uproarious romp through a lost era of professional sports that will have any armchair quarterback falling out of his or her recliner in hysterics on a semi-regular basis.… (more)
Member:GoddardGuy
Title:Semi-Tough: A Novel
Authors:Dan Jenkins
Info:Da Capo Press (2006), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 318 pages
Collections:Your library
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Semi-Tough by Dan Jenkins (1972)

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Showing 4 of 4
With the recent passing of Dan Jenkins and his high praise among some of my favorite sports talking heads, I wanted to read his seminal work. A rather dated, straight out of the early 70s, take on football and partying and Texas and women.

One of Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of all-time, some of the book was close to laugh out loud funny. Billy Clyde Puckett, star halfback of the New York Giants, is playing in the Super Bowl in L.A. against the god-ass Jets. Some of the jokes and language don't sit with 2019 sensibilities. ( )
  StevenBHenry | Nov 4, 2021 |
This book is about... food, booze, music, dope, sex, money, Texas, New York, L.A., and football. It is just about the funniest thing I ever read. ( )
1 vote rrostrom | Mar 23, 2011 |
Billy Clyde Puckett keeps an audio diary of his life and loves on the way to the Super Bowl. Lots of belly laughs, especially of the politically incorrect kind. Over the top descriptions of team-mates, Super Bowl parties, nightclubs, and dalliances of one kind and another. Oh, yeah, and a football game too. ( )
1 vote MerryMary | Nov 2, 2007 |
This is a rare hoot of a novel, ribald, funny, and very politically incorrect - so much so that I wasn't sure after the first few pages I'd like it, and PC-incorrectness doesn't usually faze me. But irreverent is what I'd call it, with a flavor very similar to "M*A*S*H". This is about Billy Clyde Puckett of the New York Giants, his teammate and best bud from the same Texas high school, Shake Tiller, and Barbara Jane Bookman, "model and confidante, and incidentally the girl with whom almost everybody must fall in love". The events precede and include the days leading up to the Superbowl, but in a way that is incidental to the main focus of the book, which seems to be about how to be true to oneself and one's friends while satisfying all desires, and football crops up here and there also. This is Jenkins' one hit novel, but I may have to check out his others now. ( )
  burnit99 | Feb 1, 2007 |
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Epigraph
I could halfway fall in love,
For part of a lonely night,
With a semi-pretty woman in my arms.
--from "Nuthin' Much to Want," a song by Elroy Blunt
Dedication
Once more for June and the dumplings, who surrender their time.
First words
I guess by now there can't be too many people anywhere who haven't heard about Billy Clyde Puckett, the humminest sumbitch that ever carried a football.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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"Dan Jenkins is a comic genius."--Don Imus Made into a hilarious and timeless film starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, and Jill Clayburgh, and recently named number seven on Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time, Semi-Tough is Dan Jenkins's masterpiece and considered by many to be the funniest sports book ever written. The novel follows the outsize adventures of Billy Clyde Puckett, star halfback for the New York Giants, whose team has come to Los Angeles for an epic duel with the despised "dog-ass" Jets in the Super Bowl. But Billy Clyde is faced with a dual challenge: not only must he try to run over a bunch of malevolents incarnate, but he has also been commissioned by a New York book publisher to keep a journal of the events leading up to, including, and following the game. Infused with Dan Jenkins's characteristic joie de vivre and replete with cigarettes, whiskey, and wild women, Semi-Tough is an uproarious romp through a lost era of professional sports that will have any armchair quarterback falling out of his or her recliner in hysterics on a semi-regular basis.

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