Jeff Hull

Broken Field by Jeff Hull is an interesting portrait of a small rural town's reaction to a hazing incident perpetrated by their football team which is on the brink of a championship season.

On their way home from an away game, football coach Tom Warner breaks protocol when he allows his assistant coach to ride home with his new bride instead of on the team bus. Tom is the only adult supervising the team and not only is he distracted by a personal issue, he also drifts off the sleep. During a brief stop at a convenience store, Tom steps off the bus to keep an eye on the teenagers as they go into the store. As they prepare to leave, two cheerleaders exit the bus and the rest of their journey home is uneventful. The next day, a concerned parent contacts Tom about some disturbing photos she finds on the school's yearbook camera. The subsequent investigation reveals football players Matt Brunner, Waylon Edwards and Alex Martin were the instigators in the hazing of their teammate. Tom and the school principal investigate the incident but when the media finds out about what happened, the school board and town are divided about what, if any, punishment should be handed down.

Sixteen year old Josie Frehse is Matt's girlfriend and even before the hazing incident, she has been considering the future of their two year relationship. She has learned to manage his somewhat moody behavior but her friendship with new student, Mikie LaValle, is quickly becoming an issue. Josie is well-liked by her peers and she is friendly with everyone regardless of where they fall in school's hierarchy. She is intrigued by Mikie but Matt has taken an instant dislike to him and he frequently bullies the newcomer. As the hazing situation comes to a head, Josie is stunned by Matt's volatile reaction toward her but even more shocking is her mother's attitude about what has happened.

Although a little slow-paced, Broken Field is an engrossing novel which offers a compelling view of the dynamics of a close-knit, rural community. The characters are richly developed with relatable shortcomings and endearing virtues. The novel has a well-developed storyline in which Jeff Hull realistically explores sensitive topics such as bullying, racism and violence against women. I greatly enjoyed and highly recommend this thought-provoking novel.… (más)

BROKEN FIELD, by Jeff Hull, is about a small town rocked by a high school football team hazing incident. As the student body, the school ,and the community try to discover what really happened, opinions are formed and lines are drawn. As the legal judgments are made, tensions are high and the town becomes more and more divided. As most emotionally impactful events do, the aftereffects change people and forever change the landscape of the school, the team, and the students involved.
Hull spends a lot time following the coach, who has past baggage, and made a few school protocol errors when the hazing incident happened. He didn't follow the guidelines, and while the overall sentiment is not to blame him for the hazing, the question becomes how should he be reprimanded and the timing of it because the football team is heading into the playoffs. One of the most intriguing and realistic conflicts that arises is that there is a faction of men, mostly former football players, who feel like the coach is abandoning at the time by resigning before the big game, even though it is clear that for the sake of the school, it is the right thing to do. This and many other issues Hull brings to light and has the reader contemplate how they would react to everything. Just to be clear, Hull does reinforce the idea that hazing is wrong, he is more concerned in the novel with considering what happens after such an occurrence.
They were a couple of subplots that just seemed to slow the story down, but overall by leaving the reader pondering their own feelings on the ramifications of hazing, Hull has done a good job with BROKEN FIELD to challenge the mind and soul and force one to think how they would react to all of it.
Thank you to Arcade/Skyhorse Publishing, Jeff Hull, and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for a honest review!… (más)

Broken Field by Jeff Hull is a very highly recommended look through the eyes of a teen girl and the coach of a high school football hazing incident in a small Montana town.

The Dumont Wolfpack is looking at a winning season. Tom Warner is the coach who is leading the team to the playoffs. After the last win, Tom gives his assistant coach permission to make the five hour drive home with his wife. He then sits up front in the bus, near the driver, and doses during the drive home. Obviously he didn't know that while he was dozing an underclassman was taped to a luggage rack, striped, and tormented. During a rest stop, cheerleaders got on the bus and captured the disturbing hazing on the school's yearbook camera. When they get home, a mother of one of the cheerleaders finds the pictures and calls Tom.

Sixteen-year-old Josie Frehse is a teen who is outgoing and friendly to everyone. She tries to meet the expectations of her family and the community. She is the sister of the football team’s star runner and girlfriend of the quarterback, Matt, one of the ringleaders of the hazing. Josie and Matt are at the top of the high school social hierarchy, but Josie is beginning to question what she wants. Matt is moody, has a sense of entitlement from sports, and is self-important, and Josie is not sure she actually wants to stay with him after high school.

Tom and the school principal question the players involved and Tom offers up his resignation as football coach. When word of the incident gets out, the town is polarized. Is this a case of "boys will be boys" and a "tradition" that almost all the male members of town have gone through or is this abuse? Then the incident attracts the attention of the media and cannot be ignored. The story is told through the point-of-view of Tom and Josie.

Broken Field is beautifully written novel and captured my attention immediately. Hull has crafted his well-developed his characters with such empathy and understanding that you will care about these people and have compassion for them. There are heartbreaking moments, actions that angered and polarized my feelings, and other actions that left me shaking my head. In the end I felt like I knew this town, for better or worse, and these people.

The ending was not quite what I expected after the adept, skillful, quiet, and psychological insight found in the rest of the novel, but that doesn't mean it was bad. Upon reflection, sending the novel in that direction was an astute choice. This is truly a memorable novel that touches on idolizing sports, racism, bullying, and violence against women. Hull has an intuitiveness for character development that made it a compelling, engrossing novel that held my attention throughout. (There are, obviously, several sports scenes described in the novel that non-sports fans can skim.)

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Skyhorse/Arcade Publishing.
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