The important thing here too is that, like, I mean, what is happening in Odessa, Texas in 1988 is like a weird perversion of everything, right?

Like, I mean, I related to it a lot because, you know, like, that's sort of the culture with which I grew up in or was familiar with, right?

But I also could understand even then, and now with more perspective as I'm older, I'm like,

oh yeah, like they're not going about this totally the wrong way.

You're setting these kids up for failure when you tell them that their senior year of high

school is like basically going to be the most important, the high point of their life, essentially.

Welcome to the Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them.

I'm your host, Tracy Thomas, and somehow we have made it to our last book club episode of the year.

Today, I am joined once again by Joel Anderson, who is a staff writer at the Ringer and co-host of

the Press Box podcast. And today we are going to discuss Friday Night Lights, a town, a team,

and a dream by H. G. Bizzinger. This book follows the 1988 season of the Permian Panthers,

one of the best high school football teams in Texas. The book explores so much more

than just the game of football, from racial dynamics to politics to a town obsessed

with football culture. And Joel and I talk about all of that and so much more on today's

episode. Please be warned, there are spoilers on the episode. Everything we talk about on each episode of

the Stacks is linked in our show notes. And remember to stay tuned to the very end of today's

episode to find out what our January book club pick will be. Now, if you like this podcast, if you want

more bookish content and community, please consider

joining the stacks pack on Patreon at patreon.com slash the stacks and subscribing to my newsletter

unstacked over on substack at tracythomas.substack.com. Each of these places offers a bunch of

different perks like community conversations, bonus episodes, virtual book clubs,

hot takes, all of that. Plus, your support makes it possible for me and the team here at the

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