Bob Katz makes his living arranging speaking tours for such writers as Ellen Goodman and Niall Ferguson. He also places op-ed pieces in newspapers, including the Plain Dealer, Boston Globe and Chicago Tribune, partially to pontificate and partially to raise awareness of his other efforts. His current project, which he’s publicizing himself, is Third and Long, a novel independent Minneapolis publisher Trolley Car Press published on June 1.
Third and Long is an Ohio book. Katz graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and he knows the state. His affection and knowledge permeate his story of a damaged man who does profound good for himself and his adopted community until he’s caught in a lie.
“At the time I was contemplating this story, I had occasion to visit the Ohio River Valley, which is, broadly speaking, where the landscape of the book is drawn from,” says Katz during a phone call from his home in suburban Boston. The author of a previous novel, Hot Air, and several books about education, including Elaine’s Book, Katz based Third and Long on a news account from New Bedford, a Massachusetts community that, like the Longview of his new book, had fallen on hard times. Ohio, however, has a degree of hard luck credibility Massachusetts can’t hope to match.
“To have the kind of insular factory town suffering hard times would not sound right to the general reader if set in the Northeast, eventhough we do have such towns,” says Katz.
The actual incident, which “made small time news for 24 hours or less,” involved a “worker in a local factory in a small town who was also a high school football coach and was widely believed to have been a former Notre Dame star. And it was disclosed he was not. Nothing else in my book comes from that story.”
Like a classic Western, Third and Long begins when a mysterious stranger wanders into town. Nick Nocero (or is it Remke?) hangs out at the local bar, where he becomes even more mysterious, and soon thereafter gets the plum, though fraught, job of manager at Made Right, the clothing manufacturer that determines how well – or badly – Longview does. An instant pillar of the community, Nick, who everybody thinks was a Notre Dame football star (thanks in part to his own presentation), is pressed into managing the Fightin’ Bobcats, Longview’s sad sack high school football team. The season begins to take shape. Nick’s checkered career gains stability. The town starts to hope. And Katz’s resonant story with its Frank Capra overtones accumulates power.
Katz occasionally veers into the flowery, but his characterizations go beyond stereotype, his narrative footing is sure, and his perceptions are clear.
“Someone once wrote, ‘Perhaps long ago we were a pioneer people, but now we are a nation of sports fans.’ That statement was probably intended to be a sarcastic comment on Americans’ dubious progress from fearless explorers of the dangerous frontier to passive consumers of televised entertainment. We didn’t necessarily see it that way.
"Sure, we watched our fair share of ESPN broadcasts involving brand name teams and marquee players, but our true passion had always been reserved for our local squads, for the sons and daughters (well, mostly sons) of townsfolk and neighbors."
Katz nails small-town life, communicating the vibe of the local pizza shop, the slow flirtation that brings Nick and Marie together, the tension attending the revelation of Nick’s true story. The town itself narrates; that improbable device works.
“I don’t think the book is so much about the hero’s deception as his need to get a job,” says Katz, suggesting Nick’s prevarication regarding his resume “would divert people from other aspects.
“To me, that’s what the book’s about: the falsification of his Notre Dame credentials is not something he did to run for office or woo women or be a big shot at the local tavern. He did it just to get a job.” Which, as we know, isn’t easy these days, particularly in Ohio.
Neither is it easy to publish a book, which is why Katz hooked up with Minneapolis publisher Doug Wilhide. Although Katz told Publishers Weekly he’d prefer a mainstream publisher, none would bite, telling him Third and Long wouldn’t sell sufficiently. So Katz and college buddy Wilhide entered into an arrangement in which Wilhide secured the ISBN number so Third and Long could get onto online databases consumers could access to buy the book; Katz paid for the editing and the striking cover design. “It’s a small printing, and I don’t want to represent it as having any of the dimensions of a Random House book,” says Katz of his hybrid of self-publishing and small press enterprise. “It’s a work-in-progress. I think there will be some success, but it’s not like every Barnes & Noble will have it tomorrow morning.”
It’s available at Amazon, however, and you can get more information on it and Katz at www.3rdandlong.net. If you can imagine a blend of “Friday Night Lights” and “Winesburg, Ohio,” you should read “Third and Long.” It’s an artfully crafted folk tale about the role of redemption in a troubled global economy. No wonder an Ohio town short on power is its star.
