Athletic Shorts Summary
Chris Crutcher

Athletic Shorts Summary

Athletic Shorts is a collection of six short stories, five of them published for the first time in the collection. The common thread to those five stories is they all contain characters from Crutcher's novels. Petey, Johnny, and Telephone Man reappear from The Crazy Horse Electric Game. Lionel from Stotan! reemerges, as does Louis Banks from Running Loose. All the characters, except Telephone Man, are athletes. The stories about Lion and Louie do not directly involve sports, while the climatic scenes of the stories about Petey and Johnny both take place on the wrestling mat. Only Angus Bethune is a new character, although the story had appeared in a collection of young adult short stories. Crutcher writes an introduction to each story, as well as a foreword. In the foreword, he notes that readers ask him about the fate of his characters after the book ends, writing in...

(read more from the Short Guide)