Katherine Hill

The book opens with a high school football star abandoning his pregnant girlfriend in a small Virginia town to raise their child on her own. From there, the book traces the baby's life as he grows into a specimen athlete, eventually playing for the U. Miami Hurricanes, becoming a first round NFL draft pick, and his long, successful career in football, followed by declining physical well-being from the long career. Katherine Hill does an amazing job in enveloping readers in the football player's life, which supersedes his personal life. Mitch "Wilk" Wilkins does not realize the damage he leaves in his wake (other than opposing players), and he winds his way through three marriages, various children, deaths of friends and family, and eventually his own. Sadly, I did not appreciate the life lessons nor the ever changing relationships with no explanations, finding the book mostly aimless.

Upon further thought, perhaps the ever changing relationships without explanation were intentional -- i.e., the result of CTE (brain injuries from football.)… (meer)

The last time I read a good novel about pro football was probably about 45 years ago, and that time it was Peter Gent's NORTH DALLAS FORTY, which was a monster bestseller in the early 70s, and about as authentic as you could get, since Gent had been a wide receiver for the Cowboys for some years. But A SHORT MOVE is a lot more than just a football story, it's a very probing look at what makes an NFL superstar, with its story of Mitch Wilkins, from his fatherless childhood in small town Virginia to his success as a standout defensive lineman for the Patriots and then the Eagles, and all that it cost him. And there's plenty here too about all the people in his life who got him there and watched him shine and then watched his inevitable decline, ravaged by injuries and time. Author Katherine Hill starts out slowly, so much so that I almost gave up on the story about a hundred pages in, but then it suddenly got better, more involved, more complex, until I just had to find out how all this was gonna turn out, and not just for Mitch, but for his hard-working mother, his ambitious coach-uncle, and then his first wife (yeah, there are a few wives in here) and other equally interesting characters. We learn about the physical, mental and emotional toll that professional football exacts from Mitch and his teammates. There is apparently an inside joke among these athletes that the real meaning of NFL is "Not For Long." We learn too that he and his teammates are very much aware of the dangers of CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) from all those bruising, brain-rattling hits they take. Years later, after 14 punishing years in the NFL, Mitch reflects back, during therapy - "Like high school, like college, the NFL was a moment. But it was a moment that had felt so permanent."

I was immediately reminded of Mark Harris's classic baseball tetralogy that began with THE SOUTHPAW. But it was the final book in that series, IT FELT LIKE FOREVER, that came back to me.

The book's title, A SHORT MOVE, comes up more than once, but perhaps the most telling time it came up was when one of the characters suggested that it was a short move from the womb to the tomb. And this is indeed a story that comes full circle, an intergenerational tale rich in characters and interconnectedness. Author Katherine Hill has spun a rich and thought-provoking tale that's much more than a football book. I'll rank it up there with Mark Harris's baseball series (that most folks probably know from the second book, BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY), and yeah, with Pete Gent's novel too. I loved it. Bravo, Ms. Hill!

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (meer)