Friday Night Lights Mass Market TV Tie-in | 
 enlarge | Author: H. G. Bissinger
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
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Rating:  286 reviews
Sales Rank: 16262
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 4.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 030681529X
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.332
EAN: 9780306815294
ASIN: 030681529X
Publication Date: August 21, 2006
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Secular religions are fascinating in the devotion and zealousness they breed, and in Texas, high school football has its own rabid hold over the faithful. H.G. Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, enters into the spirit of one of its most fervent shrines: Odessa, a city in decline in the desert of West Texas, where the Permian High School Panthers have managed to compile the winningest record in state annals. Indeed, as this breathtaking examination of the town, the team, its coaches, and its young players chronicles, the team, for better and for worse, is the town; the communal health and self-image of the latter is directly linked to the on-field success of the former. The 1988 season, the one Friday Night Lights recounts, was not one of the Panthers' best. The game's effect on the community--and the players--was explosive. Written with great style and passion, Friday Night Lights offers an American snapshot in deep focus; the picture is not always pretty, but the image is hard to forget.
Product Description
Return once again to the enduring account of life in the Mojo lane, to the Permian Panthers of Odessa -- the winningest high school football team in Texas history. Odessa is not known to be a town big on dreams, but the Panthers help keep the hopes and dreams of this small, dusty town going. Socially and racially divided, its fragile economy follows the treacherous boom-bust path of the oil business. In bad times, the unemployment rate barrels out of control; in good times, its murder rate skyrockets. But every Friday night from September to December, when the Permian High School Panthers play football, this West Texas town becomes a place where dreams can come true. With frankness and compassion, Bissinger chronicles one of the Panthers' dramatic seasons and shows how single-minded devotion to the team shapes the community and inspires-and sometimes shatters-the teenagers who wear the Panthers' uniforms. Includes Reader's Group Guide inside. Now a an NBC TV weekly drama series.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 281 more reviews...
 An Oil Town with a Football Problem December 11, 2008
Robert Freeman (Chicago)
I was drawn to FNL as a fan of the movie, the tv show, and its legendary status in the canon of great sports books. Much of the book takes on the big picture of not only high school football, but of life in small town America during the 1980's. In this way it is a terrific book for football fans as well as those interested in the spectacle of Americana.
Odessa Texas in the late 80's was recovering from a domestic oil economy that has gone bust, for reasons so much larger than the comprehension of the simple people who occupy its place on the West Texas prairie. Its real estate market has collapsed, it has a soaring crime rate, racism is rampant, and its education system is a joke, but on Friday nights all that is forgotten as 20,000 people pack the stadium to show their MoJo pride.
For as much as this book is a societal tale about how much 1988 looks like America again in 2008, the book fundamentally brings you back to the role of football in small towns. The book examines how a team and a game can transcend sport, to become something larger, something that can haunt you years later while at the same time live in your heart as the best days of your life.
 Another great sport story December 5, 2008
W. R. Judson (nashville, TN USA)
the city i play high school football in has a great football team, it also has money, shopping, and entertainment. but for the small town of odessa in west texas they only have two things, oil and that thing called football. with all of the oil running out i guess that leaves one thing left fooball!!! any highschool football player in the world would kill to have a fan base like the panthers do. this story tells about the panthers 1988 championship run. the football team overcomes a strict coaching staff, cocky teammates, and injuries to make it as far as possible against the toughest football teams in the nation. this story makes you want to go suit up and hit somebody.
 A fantastic book October 17, 2008
Feathered Quill Book Reviews (Goshen, MA)
H.G. Bissenger's book Friday Night Lights is a non-fiction account of a football team in Odessa, Texas spanning the decade of the 1980s. A once financially successful town dependent on oil revenues, Odessa's fate makes an about turn as profits dwindle, families face bankruptcy, and the crime rate climbs, far exceeding the national average. Enter the Permain Panthers football team, a group that seems to be defying all odds, proving that determination and grit can bring hope and success to this small town. It goes without saying that just as surely the team can also bring the town to its knees if it fails to win the State Championship.
At an early age, children are indoctrinated into the faith known as the Permian High School Panthers Football Team, a religion that is followed just as fervently as any other. Boys pray that they will rise to the challenge and become the next star of the Pantheon Panthers, while girls dream of becoming a "Pipette," a glorified indentured servant whose sole obligation is to meet the needs of an adoring, or as the case may sometimes be, un-adoring, football player. When they shine, the players are treated much like Greek gods, but like those gods, their reign is brief, landing some in their own version of Hades.
Bissenger follows several players, and their coach, as they travel on a journey to the State Finals. Along the way, the star player, Boobie, sustains a knee injury and learns the hard way that not only is he expendable, but that all privileges once extended to him are no longer afforded. This is made abundantly clear when the once promising star realizes that he is now actually required to attend class to receive a passing grade. While some players do show academic promise, most are unprepared for the rigors ahead of them in the real world. These players live in an eery twilight zone, reinforced by adults obsessed with winning the next Friday night's game. Along with portraits of the players, Bissenger offers a sympathetic portrayal of the coach who tries to create a winning team against the backdrop of adolescent angst, and families struggling to stay intact against a rising tide of economic and emotional woes.
Bissenger doesn't focus his reporting solely within the boundaries of the football field, he also examines how football dominance intersects all other aspects of town governance. Bissenger explains how Permian High School, once the bastion of white middle and upper-middle-class families, gerrymanders town lines so that it can pick and choose its star athletes from less privileged areas. He also reports on how funding is disproportionately spent on the football team; making scholastic achievement a secondary function of the school system. Bissenger takes us to a court proceeding where a judge is asked to rule on whether a star athlete with a questionable passing grade in algebra is qualified to play in the next game. By the time you reach this point in the book, you will fully understand that in Odessa, a town where winning a game is everything, judgment will always favor the athlete. Whether the Panthers succeed in becoming champions or not, in the end, the season is over, the old players move on, and new players replace the old, and for a brief moment, they too are stars.
Quill says: A tale of the American Dream gone awry. A fantastic book.
Best Sports Book Ever Written August 22, 2008
D. Olinger
This is my pick for the best sports book ever written, and the reason is because it transcends sports. It captures the mood and feel of small town America as well as any book since Larry McMurtry's The LAST PICTURE SHOW. What Bissinger describes about the so-called pinnacle of life in western Texas, playing for the local team, applies just as well to high school athletes in Ohio or Pennsylvania. The flip side, of course, is once the ride is over, so is your worth to the community.
Great, great read.
 long read July 21, 2008
m s w h (Milwaukee, WI)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Since I am not into football, this book was a long read for me. It could have been halved and the story complete.
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