Death of the Soccer God
A Novel
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Death of the Soccer God
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About this listen
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: 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. 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, the promise is broken. 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 with a breathless, breakneck pace synonymous with the world’s most popular sport.
Death of the Soccer God by Dimitry Elias Legér 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: can love save us?
Critic Reviews
"Like a long persona poem from the pitch, Death of the Soccer God exemplifies the kind of dark, hilarious, and discomforting forms of play that exercise our desire to pay attention. Gilbert is exhilarating when wrong, and wronged himself, and it takes a deft hand to delineate this man’s desire from his untoward destination, and yet, Dimitry Elias Léger pulls it off, while making everything in-between a serious thrill."
—Joseph Earl Thomas, author of Sink and God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer
"Dimitry Elias Leger’s novel is a feat of joy and artistry and soccer fields. From Harlem jazz clubs and Brazilian futebol stadiums, to the intimate and violent spaces of Haitian history, Death of the Soccer God takes the beautiful game on a journey unlike any other it’s taken before."
—Héctor Tobar, author Our Migrant Souls
"In Death of the Soccer God, Dimitry Elias Léger delivers a radiant, raucous, and unforgettable novel. Gilbert Chevalier—Haiti’s prodigal striker who once stunned the world in Brazil—awaits execution in Fort Dimanche, and from those suspended seconds before the rifles fire unfolds a life of scandalous love, improbable triumph, and devastating betrayal. Léger’s prose is lush, incantatory, alive with carnival excess and sudden poignancy, at once bawdy and prayerful. He turns the Beautiful Game into epic literature and Haiti itself into living myth, with a narrative energy reminiscent of García Márquez and the tragic exuberance of Derek Walcott. Fierce, funny, and profoundly moving, Death of the Soccer God is a blazing feat of invention—an indelible work of art."
—Rowan Ricardo Phillips, author of Silver
“An explosion of a novel, bursting with wit, passion and politics, Death of the Soccer God recalls Paul Beatty by way of Kapuściński’s The Soccer War, but in truth Léger is a complete original. He has written a wild, moving tale that should not be missed.”
—Junot Díaz, author of The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
"Delicious and atmospheric, full of history and desire, Legér’s novel will make you fall in love with its hero and possibly with a certain leggy sport.”
—Gary Shteyngart, author of Vera, or Faith