The Sidekick

ONE OF THIS WEEK'S BEST NOVELS OF 2022

The perfect novel for fans of The Last Dance, Hoop Dreams and Winning Time



'Exquisite. . . Warm, humane, and tragic.' JONATHAN LETHEM





At his high school basketball try-outs, nerdy sports-obsessed Brian Blum meets new kid Marcus



Hayes. As a sportswriter, Brian spends the following twenty years tracking his friends' superstar NBA



career. But when Marcus mounts his last dance comeback, after a couple of years out of the game,



both men must face the tensions of their unlikely dynamic, and the disappointments of getting



older.





'There is something so compelling about the questions of whether these two friends, despite their



fraught history and hefty egos, will rekindle a genuine connection . . . you'll want to know how the



game turns out.' TLS



'Compelling and emotionally resonant.' Spectator





'Contemporary fiction's best kept secret . . . It's gratifying to observe someone with a large amount



of specific knowledge not only imparting that expertise, but unlocking some deeper meaning within



it, like a top sports star working their magic.' Sunday Business Post



Benjamin Markovits is the author of ten previous novels. He was named a Granta Best of Young British Novelist in 2013 and in 2015 won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for You Don't Have To Live Like This. He lives in London and teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.