🔥 "Amerikaland" - by Danny Goodman

In a reimagined present, two athletes from disparate backgrounds navigate personal turmoil and global upheaval after a terrorist attack during World Day sports event.

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In this week's edition, you will read an exclusive excerpt of Danny Goodman’s debut novel Amerikaland.

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📚 The Stats

In a reimagined present, Sabine, a resilient tennis star, and Sandy, a baseball sensation from Brooklyn, meet in New York City for World Day, a symbol of global unity.

Sabine, once celebrated, faces a comeback after a violent incident, while Sandy grapples with the aftermath of a heinous crime.

Their lives intersect amidst a terrorist attack during World Day, propelling them on a journey across continents, unveiling hidden connections to the tragedy.

As shocking family secrets and geopolitical motives emerge, they must decide if their bond can endure, offering hope for a path forward amidst turmoil.

🖋️ Quote from the Book:

📖 Chapter 1: First the Bullet

Reading time: 10 minutes

Sabine wants to forget. For a moment, looking out over the morning sky, every muscle in her body sheds its weight. Last night’s storm gives way to a kind of purple and blue fire that burns everything. The clouds blanketing New Ebbets Field across the pond are an uncanny white and remind Sabine of Florida, her adopted home, of skies she thought only existed in photographs and memory. When she is here in Althea Williams Arena—as close to heaven as she can ever imagine being—it is easy to ignore the terrible things that have come before.

She stands at the top row of the arena, the center of the largest sports complex in the world, and she wonders if someone in the baseball stadium looks back at her. She wants to know what she looks like from far away, what they see. But she knows already that unmistakable gaze of embarrassment, of shame, she has felt for months. The ache in her shoulder a constant reminder, the way it speaks through her nerves, up and down her spine, until she cannot separate the feelings, the pain and being alive.

She remains up here, at peace, until she is told it is time to leave. Too early, a nosy security guard declares, and though it is not in her nature to break the rules, she cannot help this small indiscretion. Each year she has begun the City Open this way: nervous and excited looking out over the beauty of New York City, pretending for a few moments this palace is all hers. And not just in victory, not simply in winning every match for the next two weeks—no, this arena, this whole tournament, is part of her. She wants to feel ready once more. She wants to leave all of herself on this court.

Back at her hotel, after breakfast and a Prattlr Q&A with fans in Europe and Asia, she waits for her assistant, Alina, to return. Sabine is tense but tries not to show it. She rubs at the throb in her shoulder, which she has done her best to keep hidden. But her injury, her infinitely slow recovery, has been splashed across every digital sports page for months, and she spent the better part of the morning answering fan questions with misdirection and playfulness. She put on makeup and took a picture with her corgi, Roger, and watched as it spread across social media like a virus, comments written only in exclamations.

         So cute!

         Marry me Sabine Hellewege!

         Er ist ein Glückspilz!

         Okay we get it u love yur dog now play fuckin tennis!

         Sabine N Roger 4EVER!

         Aren’t you over Budapest yet?!

         You’re a hero!

         I joke!

         Brilliant!

         I wanna be that dog!

         Damn ur hot!

         Eat shite n go back to playin tennis u cunt!

         Heil Hellewege!

         Youre perfect I love you youre my favorite player of all time…ALL TIME!

Favorite. Reprattle. Share. Like. Hate. Unfollow. Ignore. Block. Report. Burn.

She wonders if it is worth it. Some players do not engage; they train and practice, they play their sport, do their job—they do not worry so much about pleasing the fans. They do not worry about being loved. They are simply tennis players, athletes at their peaks. She wonders if the men go through this, too, or if it is a burden gifted only to the women on tour: be the best, beat the best, and do not forget to smile.

Sabine cannot help herself, though. It is not enough to win, as she did for so long. Now, since her return, something has changed. When she double faults, the crowd cheers. When she mishits an easy overhead, when she yells out of frustration or pain after a point, the crowd cheers. They are against her. In their fickleness and their expectations, she fails them. She fights to be the player she was before—she will be, she tells herself like a mantra on the practice court—but she is not, not yet. She disappeared from their view for too long, perhaps, asked for privacy and understanding instead of entertaining. She is their champion still, in some twisted way, and they love to hate her.

When Alina knocks on her door and breezes in, Sabine wakes from her self-pity. Alina is stunning, Sabine has always thought, a combination of her parents’ Nigerian and Swiss. A few years younger than Sabine—who herself feels aged far beyond her twenty-seven years—traveling the world has given Alina a seasoned bravado, something Sabine has always admired about her.

“You shouldn’t post any more pictures of Roger,” Alina says curtly. She straightens up the room as she speaks, and it makes Sabine uncomfortable, someone cleaning up her mess.

“So ridiculous,” she says, more a reflex than anything else. When she is angry or bothered, Sabine’s German accent drips. “Why should those people decide what is good for me?”

Alina plops down on the bed, her feet dangling over the edge. “They’re your fans.”

Sabine makes a noise like a bark, like she cracked a forehand just wide. “Bullshit.”

“I’m just saying.” Alina types on her phone, smiling, fingers banging away at the screen with a feverish glee. Roger whines at the foot of the bed, and when she pats the space next to her, Roger gladly jumps up, makes a circle or two, and lays down. He looks at Sabine, his big eyes begging her to join them.

“Look how cute he is!” She points at Roger and his ears raise. “Why the hell is having him with me an international incident?”

Alina pets Roger and he rolls over, offering his belly. “Everything you do is an international incident,” she says, laughing at her own cleverness. She sits up, scoots to the edge of the bed. The movement riles Roger, who springs, ready to play. “Even if you don’t send him back to your father, which you should,” she says, her tone suddenly soft, “it’s best if people think you’ve moved past all this.”

Sabine leans against the window, behind which lies the city, skyscrapers outstretched, a world below filled with endless movement. “Is that what people think, that Roger is here because of what happened?”

Alina looks back at her, her eyes full of surprise and warmth and pity.

Sabine slaps her palm against the sill and storms from the room. She is being dramatic, she knows, but her anger, her frustration, are not affectations. They simmer below the surface, always just out of sight. Her father’s daughter in ways she wishes were not true.

Alina calls after her, reminding her not to miss her appointment with the trainer, that tomorrow is Kid’s Day and she needs to be ready. Before the elevator doors close, Sabine hears her say, “I know we shouldn’t care!”

Out on the street, impatient people push by her. She rounds the corners of this labyrinth until someone stops her—a family of tourists from Luxembourg—asking if she is who they think she is. The youngest daughter, gangly and awkward, reaches out her hand. “You’re my favorite,” she says. Sabine thanks her and offers to take a picture with her. After they part, Sabine’s phone chimes. The girl has posted the picture, both of their smiles wide, even though Sabine sees through her own façade, through the veil glossing her eyes. In the background, everything is blurred, a rush of the life swirling around her, and she focuses on that, on the blur, on the nothingness that carries her.

She tries not to think about Budapest. Even when asked, when some reporter has not heard enough about it, gone over it as Sabine has in excruciating detail, she manages to disconnect, to answer questions in a kind of autopilot, without the discomfort of lingering on those emotions for a moment too long. Social media, though, keeps things alive long after they should have died. Photographs—Sabine still sees them daily—reanimate every lost angle, every millisecond better left buried. Some capture the just before, and for Sabine those are the most painful. A glimpse into what she could not know, the seconds before her life would change, and though they flick across her screen with constant impunity, they bring her no understanding.

At Kid’s Day, Sabine does her best to pretend. Cheers from the crowd, flashes of sunlight bouncing off the beams crisscrossing high above from the open roof, the raucous laughter of her fellow players, the microphones they wear exaggerating even the softest sound; every moment of it makes her anxious. Kids push down to the first row, their arms collectively outstretched. Every sudden or unexpected movement enough to race through her, fire her nerve endings.

She shares the court with three other players, all of them her friends since their junior days. They supported her after Budapest, visited her in the hospital, sent flowers and well wishes, both private and public. Yet their presence brings her no consolation. Beside her stands one of her oldest friends, Veljko Dragovic—Drago, as he is known—top-ranked resident clown, bouncing three balls off his racket, head, and foot, respectively. The crowd eats it up. Like a soccer header Drago knocks the ball high and his eyes grow wide, and at the same moment from the other side of the court a ball whizzes by, Stanislas Gutzwiller’s face shaped in a devilish grin. He high-fives his partner, Lolo Samuels, a Harlem native and crowd favorite, one of Sabine’s closest friends and confidants. Lolo and Stan hold their bellies as they howl, watching Drago lose his composure, his juggled balls smacked in all directions into the crowd.

There is meant to be a lightness to the day. Sabine cannot embrace it, though, despite what her broad smile, her infectious laugh belie. She did not attend Stan’s wedding in the spring. She has yet to meet Drago’s new baby boy. She has not seen or spoken to Lolo in months. The sight of her now across the net is enough to rip Sabine in half. She has missed her; she wants to run to her, wrap her arms around her. She wants to apologize for disappearing, for pushing her, everyone, away.

Sabine sees in Drago that smile unchanged since their youth. Lolo tries to lob a beach ball over Sabine, but it catches in the air, pushed like a feather against a tidal wave and remains hovering, a still life, as if the world for a moment has been paused. They stare up together, Drago’s hand on Sabine’s shoulder as he pretends to get dizzy watching it. And when he spins around and collapses to the ground, his breaths pumping his chest up and down, the crowd screams with joy. Lolo and Stan hop the net and come to his aid, and in their laughter, Lolo reaches out her arm for Sabine, who reciprocates, and the sheer act between them sends a signal through her body, a kind of fireworks. They raise their hands to the crowd and will their cheers to grow, to use the energy of their voices to lift Drago, all of them, up.

Late in the night, Sabine wakes to a series of messages from Alina. You’re not there?! Where are you?! Are you okay?! Wanna talk? Call me in the AM. No Roger pics Enjoy Get some sleep Kisses. Her eyes bleary and seeing spots from the glow of the phone, she writes back OK.

She knows she made the right decision skipping the player party. The gazes of the press and the public are one thing, but she cannot handle the same from her fellow players. They are kind to her, yet it is exactly their pity she cannot stand. When she looks at them, when they look back at her, she knows they know, what she is only now beginning to grasp: she—her game—is mortally wounded. And like all great competitors, they watch her, and they circle, round and round their prey.

She makes herself a lavender tea and sits at the window, the city lit up around her. She thinks of the signs scattered throughout the tennis grounds announcing this year’s theme, an agenda of a nation, of World Day: Rebirth. She has seen herself on one of the posters—face shaped in almost-victory, about to hit the backhand that would win her a second City Open title—and through the strings of her racket the word is animated, stretching, fading into the gut. It looks to Sabine like she is stealing it, or taking back what is hers. What this sport owes her. Her own private rebirth.

She presses her hand against the window and feels the coolness of the night. Her eyes are heavy but she does not want sleep. In the glass she sees her reflection. She is not the woman she was. This person, tentative and frightened, is who she trained not to be, who her coach—her father—and endless hours of practice taught her to be better than, to seek out, to destroy. She was strength. She was greater than. She was unshakeable. It took only one moment, one deranged person to change it all, to change her, to undo everything. A momentary lapse in security. One woman, a political radical. A crowd of protestors, screaming and chanting and meant only as distraction, and one woman, her print-at-home plastic gun, and a long, long second to take her shot.

The first question every reporter asked Sabine, disseminated to media outlets across the world, was the absurd one: How did it feel?

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