While reading PLAYING DAYS by Benjamin Markovits, I mentally compared this basketball-themed title to other favorite sports novels. There aren’t that many. I thought of THE NATURAL by Bernard Malamud, BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY by Mark Harris, THE ART OF FIELDING by Chad Harbach and NORTH DALLAS FORTY by Peter Gent. Why is sports such a barren topic for fiction writers? Perhaps real-life sports, with countless examples of extraordinary achievements and overcoming great odds, make the fictional counterpart tricky to capture on the pages of a novel. It also might be that sportswriters spend their time writing about actual events and find it difficult to transition to fiction. Whatever the reason, sports-themed novels are rare, and notable ones are even more uncommon.

While one might argue that PLAYING DAYS is more biography than fiction, it is indeed a novel and makes for an excellent and enjoyable reading experience. In college, Markovits played basketball. After graduation, he made an audition video of his basketball skills and sent it to various European basketball teams. On the basis of that footage, Markovits signed to play with a German second-division team. Europeans are passionate about basketball, and there are a multitude of teams in European cities both large and small. While we cannot be certain how much of the book is based on his true-life experience, he did play a season in Europe, and the main character here bears his name and life history.

"While one might argue that PLAYING DAYS is more biography than fiction, it is indeed a novel and makes for an excellent and enjoyable reading experience."

PLAYING DAYS revolves around the players on the provincial Landshut team, a mix of American and European athletes, with most of the stereotypes one would expect to find occupying the team’s roster. Some are just beginning their basketball careers and dream of being discovered by the NBA or a major European club. Others are on a downward spiral and hope to hang on for one more season. One character in the novel is clearly a young Dirk Nowitzki, now an NBA Hall of Famer, who played on the DJK Würzburg team and was picked in the first round of the 1998 NBA draft.

The novel’s two main characters are Ben and Bo Hadnot, one of the players on the team whose career has seen better days. Ultimately Bo will leave the Landshut team but reappears for a final one-on-one battle with Ben in the division championship game. He also leaves behind his wife, Anke, and young child. Ben begins an affair with the woman, and their relationship forms a backdrop for much of Markovits’ introspective narratives.

PLAYING DAYS captures the “empty time,” the hours and days when players are not preparing for games or practicing. During these moments, the players and management of the Landshut team share their lives and feelings of disconnection and indirection. When Markovits shifts to describing actual games, his knowledge of basketball is clear. Author John McPhee described basketball as “a game of subtle felonies”; the novel makes that point in its on-court action.

It requires a certain skill to write sports fiction and a certain reading interest to pick up a sports-themed novel. If basketball is your thing, then PLAYING DAYS is the book for you.