The Sidekick by Benjamin Markovits
Review by Claire Thomson
Benjamin Markovits’ latest novel The Sidekick, his eighth, sets Janet Malcolm’s rather bleak view of journalism against a basketball court. Brian Blum, a 35 year old white man dreading the onset of middle age, is a sports reporter. And by all measures, he’s a good one. He has a stable gig at ESPN, more importantly, he has a unique link to Marcus Hayes, one of the most celebrated basketball players of his generation. But Blum is preoccupied by the particular, and sometimes a little hard to sympathise with, problem of being very, very good but just not great.
It’s a problem Markovits has explored before. His 2018 novel A Weekend in New York focused on the psychodynamics of the family of a tennis player who reached a major final early in his career, a success never to be repeated. His family descends on New York to support him as he enters the first round of the US Open.
The problem and psychological torture of being in touching distance of greatness is ramped up a notch here by Blum’s agonising closeness to greatness, not his own, but of his childhood friend and basketball star Marcus Hayes.
The pair drifted apart as Marcus’ star grew during and after college. When Marcus prepares to stage his comeback to basketball at the age of 35, he asks Brian to document his return to sport in a book.
Brian and Marcus played on the high school basketball team together where Brian’s specialism was making a shot in an unglamorous and awkward way, but landing it every time. Marcus’ specialism was simply being excellent. When Marcus’ family situation becomes more fraught, he moves in with Brian’s white family, much to Brian’s father’s delight.
Markovits draws domestic fraughtness excellently. The novel’s strongest points are in its scenes of the mundane everyday of suburban American life, imbued with a bittersweet nostalgia. It’s a nostalgia that might well feel very different for Brian and for Marcus. Memories of Marcus being unable to find a barber skilled in cutting Black hair in Brian’s neighbourhood and Brian’s sister Betsy stepping in, only to make a complete mess of his hair, might be a funny teenage memory for Brian, but a painful reminder of the racism Marcus was subjected to throughout his adolescence. Of course, this isn’t quite how Brian remembers things. Even in his adulthood, Brian bitterly remembers Marcus as having been adored by his family and enjoying the special treatment of the favourite.
This is a novel as much about jealousy as basketball, the power of writing to avenge and the ultimate imbalance of power between writer and subject. This isn’t to say basketball isn’t part of the story. And for readers who aren’t fans of the sport, it might be a little much. But like all of the best sports writing, even those who might not consider themselves fans of the game can find more to enjoy.
Markovits asks uncomfortable questions of the nature of sports writing itself. Where is the line between sports journalism and gossip? What right have reporters, and us as readers, to the intimate details of an athlete’s life? The novel isn’t shy about asking more ambitious questions too — about race in America, gender politics and the difficult ethics of exchanging one’s body for education, for fame or simply or a living. While its vision might get a little muddied in an overly long middle, readers willing to stick with it until the end are rewarded with a refreshing take on the classic American novel.