The Big Game Is Every Night

Robert Maynor has been selected as the winner of the 2022 South Carolina Novel Series for his debut novel, The Big Game is Every Night. Grady Hayes is a young high school football player being raised by his hard working single mother. His life revolves around football, until—in a game against cross-county rivals—he breaks his leg. Cut off from his teammates, Grady is lost. He takes prescription pills to dull the pain and pass the time. But when his leg finally heals and Grady tries to return to the team, his spot has been filled and he can’t relate to his teammates anymore. Grady takes up with Hambone, a brooding older boy, and they start hunting together in the swamp at night. Their relationship is volatile, fueled by alcohol and pills, and their hunting ritual quickly turns dark and carelessly violent. Feeling helpless and out of ways to stop her son’s downward spiral, Grady’s mother asks his estranged father to pay them a visit to set Grady straight, leading to a tragic family reckoning. Told in the keen, honest voice of a young man growing up in the rural American South, The Big Game is Every Night is a literary novel that will appeal to readers interested in better understanding the cultural forces that shape contemporary blue-collar America.