Writing
The story of the American athlete is one that has been written a million and one times. To this point, not a single one of those authors have found a way to write an ending that, at the very best, rides our hero off into a bittersweet sunset. Hell, most of them don’t even get that far. It’s easy to forget the countless fallen protagonists that litter the halls of our national past-times, forced to turn their backs on the only dream they’ve ever known.
Larry Colton spent the first three decades of his life looking down a tunnel that only ever seemed to point towards baseball. Suddenly, he was 30, and the tunnel had led him to Portland, Oregon. There he stood, with two daughters now and a right arm that didn’t know how to throw a curveball anymore.
But it knew how to write.
Periodicals
The Oregonian, Willamette Week, Oregon Magazine, Oregon Business Journal, Portland Quarterly, Sports Illustrated, New York Times, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Ladies Home Journal, Esquire
BOOKS
Idol Time
Timber Press, 1978
The story of the World Championship Portland Blazers, Bill Walton and the fans who love them.
Reviews
“The best book about the Portland Trail Blazers championship season. Colton had incredible access to the players and coaches that writers will never have again. The result is a fascinating look inside Blazermania of 1977-78.”
“If you only read one of Larry Colton’s books, make sure it isn’t this one. He was just starting his writing career, and clearly didn’t have his chops together yet, although there are a few good scenes scattered throughout, particularly his bike trip down the Oregon coast with superstar Bill Walton. On a comparative rating with Colton’s other books, I give this one a 1.”
“Wonderful. Sad. Honest... and awesome blend of emotions. Colton does a great job of telling the tales of a group of college buddies. He is blunt, funny, melancholy and pretty much every other emotion. With such great talent, I hope he writes another book just on his career.”
Well I’ve got good news for you, John…
“Five stars. I really loved it though when I discovered it is 559 pages, I hesitated, considering it more a heavy paperweight. When I got into it, however, I found Colton writes at a breezy clip. The story flowed, the dialogue was witty and I couldn’t put the book down, reading the entire thing in four days.”
“In 1977 Sara Davidson published a memoir titled “Loose Change”, the story of Davidson and two of her sorority sisters at UC Berkeley. It was the inspiration for Larry Colton to write a male version. Is the sequel better than the original? This is a difficult question, but I prefer Goat Brothers, but a woman might prefer Loose Change. In my humble opinion, Goat Brothers is superior because it follows the characters into their early fifties and Davidson uses pseudonyms and changed some details of their life stories. I much prefer Colton’s use of real names and true (if sometimes messy) life stories.”
Goat Brothers
Doubleday, 1994
The true-life American epic of five men who live out the dreams, failures, loves and betrayals of their tumultuous generation. Chronicles the lives of Colton and four of his fraternity brothers at UC Berkeley in the early sixties. They navigate the turbulent social and personal landscapes of their generation, including Vietnam, growing from college jocks into complex adults. This deeply human saga examines how each man’s struggles, ambitions, and relationships reflect the broader American experience from the 1960s onward.
Reviews
“Engaging. Compulsively readable. Colton’s tone is unflinching and witty, showing little nostalgia.”
“An excellent view of America in the 1960s- and those who worked to honor and build it and those who worked to bring it down. This is a great book. It should be turned into a TV series. It could be an award-winning series for years.”
“A crisp portrait of a generation.”
“This book seems like it might be geared more for men but I absolutely LOVED it. The author really gives great insight into what it was like coming of age in the early 60s. Tragic and sad at times, but it really defines the times.”
“A very honest and exposing story of the lives of five fraternity brothers in the sixties. Colton was courageous in exposing his misogynistic tendencies. At the end, it made me wonder how he views these tendencies, now that his two daughters are in that same climate and age.”
Jill, my daughters are both feminists and rebuke me every time it looks like I might drift across the line.
Once, when I was giving a reading for Goat Brothers at a book store, I held up a copy of the book and said: “This book has been called the definitive work on bad male behavior. A woman in the back stood up and yelled, “That book’s not thick enough!”
- Larry Colton
“A fine literary journalist. A compelling, deeply rendered portrait.”
“Occasionally you read a book that sticks with you long after you’ve finished it. This book is one of those. What a depressingly good book.”
Counting Coup
Warner Books, 2001
Capturing the divisive racism between whites and Crow Indians and the hardscrabble existence of a small rural town in Montana, Counting Coup tells the story of the girls’ varsity basketball team at Hardin High. The team -comprised of both Crow and white girls- is led by Sharon LaForge, a moody, undisciplined yet talented American Indian girl who’s hoping the be the first female player from her school and tribe to earn a basketball scholarship to college. While following LaForge and the team for an entire season, Colton shows how the players deal with success, failure, friendship, rivalries, racism and romance.
Reviews
“Written with sensitivity, spirit and humor... vivid and moving.”
“Larry Colton’s you-are-there narrative draws you there.”
“finishing this book was like saying goodbye to friends.”
“Counting Coup might not have ever appeared on my ‘to read’ list primarily because I have little knowledge of either competitive basketball or life on an Indian reservation, but appear it did, and upon reading it I am grateful that this story was written and found its way into my hands and heart.
It was Colton’s ability to spin a yarn that drew me into the book and kept me there. His willingness to write the often less than perfect truths about himself gained my trust as a reader, so that the story he paints of Indian culture, and the North American culture and more importantly the perfectly rendered portrait of teenage girls whose paths can fork towards either success or failure - is not only believable but makes Counting Coup a story bigger than basketball or reservations.
Of all the adjectives I could use to describe this book, I was most surprised by the humor in the story and the tension that had me burning through the pages. I had to know how the team’s season ended, and the final score of each game, despite having never attended a basketball game, surely a testimony to the competence of the author.”
No Ordinary Joes
Crown, 2010
The harrowing true story of four ordinary young men who served on the submarine US grenadier and became prisoners of war after their vessel was sunk by a Japanese torpedo in 1943. The book details their survival through torture and starvation in a POW camp, and the subsequent struggle to readjust to civilian life and rekindle relationship with their families, highlighting the atrocities of war and its enduring impact on the men who fought it. The book also examines the trauma impacting their relationship, including Bob Palmer, whose wife remarried while believing him dead, and then what happened when they reconnected thirty years later.
Reviews
“The book’s content is fresh and the narrative is suburb.”
“The book recounts the men’s harrowing experience as POWs, but it also at it’s core is an incredible love story.”
“Larry Colton’s ordinary Joes are just like us, yet they endured what we could only
imagine, and are ennobled in ways they
themselves might not claim. Intimate and
epic, unblinking and even-handed, Colton’s engrossing story strips sentimentality and cliché form our notion of hero.”
“This was a fascinating recounting of four
guys lives before, during and after World War I. It is epic in its scope and I constantly kept thinking “this should be a mini-series/movie”. It is no Hollywood script in many respects however. Racism is everywhere. The imperfections and flaws of the four guys are put on display, but are viewed next to their selfless and courageous acts and the seemingly endless suffering they endured. All in all, an amazing tale.”
“Those who say that sports do not, or should not, make us think about anything beyond the field itself have always been wrong. The summer of ‘64 and the stories found in Southern League demonstrate that once again.”
“Larry Colton has an extraordinary gift for
capturing those times when everyday glitz and glamor-free American sports, is not merely a metaphor for our culture but
becomes a mechanism for cultural change. His highest expression of that gift comes now in SOUTHERN LEAGUE in which he introduces you to players nobody has yet built statues of, but who forced sea-changes in the America in which you live.”
“Tribute to courage. Well-crafted and entertaining.”
“Very well written and engaging from beginning to end. I like interweaving of the Civil Rights Movement and the baseball season as it really put into perspective what the players were dealing with.”
Southern League
Grand Central Publishing, 2013
The story of the 1964 Birmingham Barons, the first racially integrated team of any sport in the state of Alabama, just months after the horrific bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four young black girls. More than a story about baseball, this is a true account of a pivotal moment in the transformation of American society. Colton takes us on the road with players as they stay in separate but unequal hotels, follows a desperate pennant race down to the wire, and gets us to root for a courageous team owner who regularly faced threats from the KKK.
Reviews
“The breadth of Colton’s reporting here, placing the Birmingham Barons 1964 season squarely into the context of the Civil Rights era is a narrative tour de force.”
“Larry Colton’s interweaving of the 1964
Southern League baseball season with the Civil Rights movement revisits a period in American history that many of us will not - and should not - forget. With Colton’s retelling of players enduring racial insults on the field and threats and other indignities off the field, SOUTHERN LEAGUE makes for riveting and revealing reading.”
“By the most conservative of estimates, it is easily one of the ten best baseball books I’ve ever read. I’m tempted to put it right at No. 1, ahead of Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, but let’s call it a top five for now.”