Phillip Wilhite’s novel, Hand-Me-Down Dreams, happens in a period in the glory days of big-league sports during 1980, when the media and baseball were having an extended honeymoon. Xavier, a pitcher with the New York Yankees, lives the high life with his former college sweetheart, Ida, until a serious injury in his pitching arm forces the elite club to release the fire-baller. Drinking has always been lurking in his life, but it raises its head full-blown in his troubled existence.
It has been said that male writers sometimes fumble when they try to create an entertaining tale of love, lust, and romance. Here Wilhite, a business broker for Wells Fargo and a sportswriter, concocts all of the ingredients for a bewitching story that plucks the heartstrings. But it’s not all fantasy. It’s the stuff that turns real-life on its head. More ?