Her entry begins:Over the last two years while writing One Goal, the book that has remained on my nightstand and I’ve picked up again and again is Elizabeth Strout’s The Burgess Boys. Like me, Strout went to Bates College, which is in Lewiston, where One Goal takes place. Her book is set in the fictional Shirley Falls, an economically-depressed Maine mill town fraught with racial and religious conflicts since the onset of thousands of Somali refugees. Sound familiar? The story is based on a ripped-from-the-headlines incident that took place in Lewiston years ago, and is detailed in One Goal. While I read mountains of pages to research One Goal, from the local Lewiston sports pages to UN documents on refugees and everything in between, Strout’s book...[read on]About One Goal, from the publisher:
In the tradition of Friday Night Lights and Outcasts United, ONE GOAL tells the inspiring story of the soccer team in a town bristling with racial tensionVisit Amy Bass's website.that united Somali refugees and multi-generation Mainers in their quest for state—and ultimately national—glory.
When thousands of Somali refugees resettled in Lewiston, Maine, a struggling, overwhelmingly white town, longtime residents grew uneasy. Then the mayor wrote a letter asking Somalis to stop coming, which became a national story. While scandal threatened to subsume the town, its high school's soccer coach integrated Somali kids onto his team, and their passion began to heal old wounds. Taking readers behind the tumult of this controversial team—and onto the pitch where the teammates vied to become state champions and achieved a vital sense of understanding—ONE GOAL is a timely story about overcoming the prejudices that divide us.
The Page 99 Test: One Goal.
Writers Read: Amy Bass.
--Marshal Zeringue
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