Death of the Soccer God

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR BY THE NEW YORKER

A global soccer star's epic ride to the 1950 World Cup places him in shooting distance of his dreams and his own death.

Gilbert Chevalier's life is a mid-century miracle: he is wealthy, handsome, beloved by every woman he meets, and blessed with incomparable talents on the soccer field. And it's all about to end . . .

Gil's father makes him swear off the sport to focus on his studies. But when he leaves the bourgeois comforts of Port-au-Prince high society and moves to the dizzying, jazz-soaked streets of Harlem to attend Columbia University, he breaks his promise. Scrimmaging in Central Park, he's spotted by the U.S. national team's coach and is recruited to play for the Americans in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil. And then he flies too close to the sun.

Gil's unraveling is the wild stuff of myth: a plea to God for salvation; secret messages smuggled across continents; lovers shuffled, scorned, and reclaimed; and journeys past the veil between our world and the afterlife. From the Caribbean to the States to South America and back, Gil's adventures are lush and lurid, and delivered at a breathless, breakneck pace synonymous with the world's most popular sport.

Death of the Soccer God, by Dimitry Elias Léger, is a passionate and improbable love story, and a roaring Pan-American tale about the price of fame. Inspired by the unbelievable yet true story of an intrepid young Haitian immigrant and energized with the high-voltage fervor of a packed stadium, Death of the Soccer God is a heady dance between life and death, an answer to the eternal question: Is love enough to save us?