We Ride Upon Sticks

Danvers vs. Masconomet
 
Two minutes into the second half, Masco s #19 took an indirect shot on our goal. For a moment we lost sight of the ball in the scrum of players huddled in front of the net, the air blurry with sticks as if a hundred defenders were trying to clear it and a hundred others were trying to score. Considering how the first half went down, there really wasn t any reason for those of us on offense to keep watch­ing, our defense porous as a broken window. True, our opponents, the Masconomet Chieftains, hadn t officially put it in the net, but it was a foregone conclusion, the ball already as good as in, another Masco goal adorning the scoreboard. Girl Cory turned and started the humiliating trek back to midfield. A few of us began to follow.
 
Come on, guys, pleaded Abby Putnam as she watched our offense retake its positions on the center line, readying ourselves for yet another back pass that restarts play after a goal. Masco hasn t even scored yet. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the ball found daylight, shooting out of the throng and right through our own Mel Boucher s heavily padded feet.
 
Abby hung her head, temporarily deflated. An empty potato-chip bag went sailing by, a tumbleweed in the wind. Quickly she pulled herself together and jogged back to midfield where the rest of our offense was already waiting, our forward line fanning ourselves with our sticks like a flock of overheated southern belles.
 
Come here often? offered Jen Fiorenza snidely from her posi­tion at left forward, but we were all too tired to tell her to cram it.
 
The Chieftains didn t even cheer. It was 92° in the shade. If we could ve rolled over and offered our throats, our pale underbellies flashing in the July sun, we would ve, each of us a white flag. There were twenty-eight minutes of play left. It was hard to know who was having less fun us or them. Mel Boucher stood in the goal, whacking the

Raised in the coastal town of Danvers, Massachusetts, Quan Barry is the author of the novel She Weeps Each Time You re Born and of four books of poetry, including the collection Water Puppets, which won the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and was a PEN Open Book finalist. She lives in Wisconsin and teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR TIME  BOOK RIOT LITHUB KIRKUS REVIEWS

Quirky, comic, and painstakingly detailed. . . . Barry writes with a sustained, manic energy. The New York Times Book Review

A fresh coming-of-age story. Time

Spellbinding, wickedly fun. . . . Each sentence fizzes like a just-opened bottle of New Coke. O, The Oprah Magazine

You may come for the sizzle of genre elements here, but you ll stay for the rich bond forged by friendships on the field, the memories of misguided youth and the power of belief. Variety

A delightful, hilarious ode to the 80s. Ms. Magazine

A perfect blend of aesthetic and narrative pleasure. . . . Very funny and a little angry and a lot of fun. Maris Kreizman

The prose style is neon and the laughs do not stop. I feel like the author wrote the entire book with an evil grin on her face. Molly Young, Vulture

A charming novel that combines the beats of a sports movie with the dramas of teenagers coming of age. . . . There s plenty of 80s nostalgia . . . but Barry also delivers an earnest look at the divisions and secrets that can bubble up in a close group in any era. The AV Club

Surprising and ultimately delightful. . . . The narration is playful, making the emotional crescendos even more satisfying. . . . Barry is a skilled storyteller and sentence artist who embraces irreverence where irreverence is due. Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Almost too much fun to be allowed. . . . Truly a delight in every way. Literary Hub

In a story filled with friendship, femininity and 80s iconography, Barry will keep you laughing with every turn of the page. TODAY

Charming. . . . But Barry is . . . careful not to let nostalgia paper over the real ways in which things were worse in the 1980s, particularly for queer people and people of