Fastest Loser (ePub)

The Olympic Village has never been explored in literary fiction, until now. The village temporarily unites the best lycra, best ovaries, best testes, best muscle fibres and twitch fibres, best friends and common enemies. Briefly, antagonists become lovers. Iranians share the village bus with Israelis; Chinese gymnasts eat alongside their rivals from Taiwan; German and British athletes jog through the village together; Kenyans and Ethiopians waggle their medals in unison. Once their competitions are over, all throw off their national tracksuits, their bras and their briefs, and mate. But does the fleeting nature of their physical association have a larger, more durable, and even sinister legacy? Herman searches the village for the right sporting heroes to conceive and raise a child. Unable to consummate his own relationships, and having witnessed death in the Munich Olympic Village four decades earlier, he wishes to facilitate life and love between different peoples, nations, and ethnicities. He intends to encourage the best athletes from America to mate with the best athletes from Africa, the best runners from Britain with the best gymnasts from China. The consequences are humorous, poignant, but also potentially terrifying - even racist. Herman encounters Lily Wei Lee, a gymnast from Chinese Taipei. She retains several secrets, yearns for a medal, maintains a strange rivalry with mainland Chinese gymnasts, and "e;fattens"e; herself with dish cloths hidden under her clothes, to lull her rivals into a false sense of their own physical superiority. Herman believes she could be an ideal mother, and searches for an appropriate athletic hero to be her partner. He encourages her flirtation with Moses, a long distance runner from East Africa's Great Rift Valley. Moses smears rose oil over his body and wrestles with his faith. Yet Lily develops a closer relationship with Roger Benjamin, a British sprinter. Roger believes his ability to channel his sexual powers and frustrations will enhance his likelihood of sporting success. Herman encourages a rivalry between Roger and Moses, with humorous but also shocking consequences. This is a novel about sporting destiny and the nature of human association, the tension between physical and spiritual love, and the interaction between public memory and individual history. There are references, images, and allusions to real and historical athletes, from all the world's Olympic Villages: from Derek Redmond to Fu Mingxia, from Bob Beamon to Sharron Davies, from Roger Federer to Sally Gunnell. All their destinies become associated with Herman's fate as "e;a go-between in the love and loves of the village's youth."e;