Story for the Week
Once upon a time, I spent every Sunday watching sports on television, followed closely by Monday night. Yes…in case you wondered, I loved watching professional football. đ
I used to host Super Bowl parties with ice cream cakes decorated for the teams. Guests chose their piece of cake based on the team they supported. (I might have to revive that tradition đ€, but I’ll have to wait until Super Bowl LX. Corinne would never forgive me for having my first Super Bowl party in 23 years while she’s in Liverpool. đ)
I actually still enjoy watching football and am watching an NFL Divisional game as I write this. And I will be watching the Super Bowl in two weeks. But it’s been a long time since I spent six hours every Sunday watching. Dennis loved soccer âœ, but he really didn’t like “American football.” After we got married, I started watching less and less football and more and more soccer, which I also learned to love.
He did watch the Super Bowl with me every year, mostly for the commercials, and every year I would have to explain downs to him…several times. He just couldn’t grasp the concept, or maybe he chose not to because he hated that a 60-minute game took three hours to play. đ€Ł
Corinne grew up watching soccer, and since she’s been in Liverpool, she and her friends have pretty regularly gone to a pub to watch games. My brother-in-law lives with us, and he follows a lot of soccer, so we still watch a lot in our house. Not Major League Soccer though. We typically attend one or two Chicago Fire games in person each season just for something to do, but the international league games move so much faster than MLS.
I’ve never been one to watch baseball on television âŸ, although I did watch the last three games of the World Series when the Cubs won…even though I was raised a White Sox fan. I enjoy baseball at the park and have been to games at both Wrigley and Comiskey. (Do not even think about telling me it’s called Rate Field. đ That’s like calling the Sears Tower the Willis Tower. đ€š It will always be Comiskey to me.) There’s just something special about experiencing baseball live versus watching it on television.
I’ve never been one to watch a lot of basketball on television either đ, except when the Bulls were at their best. I mean, Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Paxson, Cartwright, Kerr, Grant. It was a beautiful thing. But I’ve never been to a professional basketball game. Honestly, considering how much I loved playing basketball when I was younger, that’s a little surprising even to me.
The sport I can’t watch on television? Hockey đ. It’s not that I don’t like hockey. We’ve attended a few minor league games. I’ve seen the Hockey Hall of Fame. We even attended a Chicago Blackhawks game in the most nosebleed of nosebleed seats. I vividly remember Corinne getting mad at Dennis for cheering for the other team. He did it just to antagonize her, but what really made her mad was that she missed out on the free McDonald’s fries we would have gotten if the Blackhawks won. đđ She told Dennis that he owed her an order of fries.
But the real reason I don’t watch hockey on television is I find it too hard to follow the puck. It’s really small…and it moves really fast.
Hockey plays a major theme in the book reviewed below. And they’re also not watching it on television.
Book Review
âââ
3 Stars for What Happened to the McCrays? by Tracey Lange
324 pages
Publisher: Celadon Books
Publication Date: January 14, 2025
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Celadon Books.
Publisher’s Description
When Kyle McCray gets word his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, he returns to his hometown of Potsdam, New York, where he doesnât expect a warm welcome. Kyle left suddenly two and a half years ago, abandoning people who depended on him: his father, his employees, his friendsânot to mention Casey, his wife of sixteen years and a beloved teacher in town. He plans to lie low and help his dad recuperate until he can leave again, especially after Casey makes it clear she wants him gone.
The longer heâs home, the more Kyle understands the impact his departure has had on the people he left behind. When heâs presented with an opportunity for redemption as the coach of the floundering middle school hockey team, he begins to find compassion in unexpected places. Kyle even considers staying in Potsdam, but thatâs only possible if he and Casey can come to some kind of peace with each other.
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Main Characters:
- Kyle McCray â 42-year-old auto mechanic, lives in Spokane, originally from upstate New York, his mother left his father when Kyle was 12, Casey was his high school sweetheart and they were married for 16 years, left Potsdam and divorced two-and-a-half years ago
- Casey McCray â 40-year-old middle school teacher in Potsdam, manages the hockey team, still lives in her childhood home that she had shared with Kyle when they were married, also still shares the home with her brother, their father died in a car accident when they were young, and their mother died just before Casey was set to start college
- Wyatt Higgins â Casey’s younger brother, paraplegic in a wheelchair since the car accident that killed his father, does woodworking in a shop that he also uses as a separate residence attached by a ramp to his and Casey’s childhood home
- Danny McCray â Kyle’s father, retired firefighter who still trains new recruits, suffered a stroke and needs therapy to get his full speech and mobility back
Trigger warning: grief, attempted suicide
I will start by saying that I am solidly in the minority on this book as many of the reviews I have seen are 5 stars. This book is a very slow burn and not in a good way as far as I’m concerned.
Told in dual timelines of Now and Then, the story relays the details of Kyle’s return home to help his father through his rehab after a stroke as well as giving us flashbacks to his relationship with Casey. It’s an amazing love story, one that developed over time. Kyle and his dad help watch over Wyatt when Casey and her mom have to be away, just in case he needs help maneuvering his wheelchair. The relationship with Kyle and Wyatt actually developed before the relationship with Casey. When Kyle helps Casey after an upsetting date one evening, their love story really begins.
We are presented with Kyle early on as someone kind and protective but also with a bit of a temper when it comes to protecting people. We discover that Kyle moved in with Casey and Wyatt after their mother died, and he and Casey married several years later. From everything we see, Kyle and Casey had an amazing relationship, full of love, understanding one another and what each of them needs from the other.
But when the story opens, Kyle is leaving Spokane to drive home to Potsdam to help his dad. He is worried about seeing Casey. He is worried about whether he will be accepted by the people in his small town because of the way he left. Even his relationship with his dad seems to be strained. So it really does beg the question: What happened to the McCrays?
The author offers hints along the way about some sort of tragedy that apparently ripped Kyle and Casey apart. By the time the reveal comes, we know what the tragedy is even though we don’t find out the details until quite a bit later. It is said that a tragedy will either bring a couple closer together or rip them apart, so Kyle and Casey’s split is understandable and believable. But I feel like this could have been executed so much better.
For example, there is a running theme of Casey forgetting her keys, her wallet, her phone. I assumed that would have something to do with what happened, but apparently it’s just a cute character flaw? Honestly, the number of times it’s mentioned makes Casey look like a flake. It does make for one cute moment at the very end of the book, but it wasn’t worth the buildup.
Hockey plays a huge part as a theme in the story. Kyle was a star hockey player in high school, Casey manages the middle school team now, Kyle steps in to coach the team. It’s a lot of hockey…which is fine. But what became increasingly annoying was the constant mentions or variations of Gretzky’s quote “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” It’s a fantastic quote, a great motivator, so one mention (maybe two) so you can lead into the variation of the quote. But it was over and over and over. Even just Gretzky’s name was mentioned 13 times in the book.
The overarching mood is also really depressing. There are sweet moments, little smiles, what looks to be progress. By the end of the book, though, which has a decent if predictable happy ending, it was so depressing that I can’t believe they truly got to the happy.
***SPOILERS*** SPOILERS***SPOILERS***
One of the things I really don’t like is the way that Casey allowed Kyle to be villainized. The tragedy they faced was the loss of their son Charlie in a horrible accident. Casey blames herself because she was inside the house reading an e-mail when Charlie fell off a lift while he waited for her to come outside. Kyle blames himself because he took Charlie up on the lift before, and he thinks Casey blames him as well. Casey never tells Kyle that it wasn’t his fault! For four years, he believes that Casey blames him!
About a year-and-a-half after Charlie died, Kyle and Casey planned a trip to get away. The morning they were supposed to leave, Casey basically tells Kyle he should go by himself. What he believed she was telling him, and what it seemed like she really was telling him, was that he should leave. She couldn’t be around him anymore. So he left. And she didn’t tell anyone that she basically told him to go. She let Wyatt hate Kyle because of the way he left. She let Kyle’s relationship with his dad become strained because of the way he left. And even though Kyle continued to stay in touch, eventually Casey was the one who stopped responding and then sent divorce papers. But she let people believe that Kyle left by choice.
Grief impacts everyone differently. I know that from personal experience. But the way she let Kyle become the villain was not ok. The further I read, the more selfish she seemed. I really didn’t like her at the end of the book, so by the time I got to the happy ending, I felt like she didn’t really deserve it.
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