I sort of stumbled across this football league and became fascinated with these Italian guys who loved to put on the pads and helmets and beat each other up once a week. GRISHAM: Well, there is American football in Italy when I was researching a book called 'The Broker' that was published, I think, in '05. HATTORI: John, 'Playing for Pizza' has nothing to do with Papa John's or Shakey's but rather American football in Italy, a country where most people think of football is soccer. JOHN GRISHAM (Author, 'Playing for Pizza'): Happy to be here. John Grisham joins us from our studios in New York. But Grisham's latest work is a departure from the courtroom setting. You know many of the titles - 'The Firm,' 'Pelican Brief,' 'The Client,' 'The Rainmaker.' He's written 20 books in all. author with seven books racking up a total of more than 60 million copies sold. In the 1990s, he was among the bestselling, if not the bestselling U.S.

To say that Italythe land of opera, fine wines, extremely small cars, romance, and Football Americano holds a few surprises for Rick Dockery would be something of an understatement.In the book world, when it comes to legal thrillers, no one is more closely associated with the genre than John Grisham. He knows nothing about Parmanot even where it ishas never been to Europe, and doesnt speak or understand a word of Italian. So Rick reluctantly agrees to play for the Panthersat least until a better offer comes alongand heads off to Italy. Yes, Italians do play American football, to one degree or another, and the Parma Panthers desperately want a former NFL playerany former NFL playerat their helm. Against enormous odds Arnie finally locates just such a team and informs Rick that, miraculously, he can in fact now be a starting quarterback. Overnight, he became a national laughingstock and, of course, was immediately cut by the Browns and shunned by all other teams.īut all Rick knows is football, and he insists that his agent, Arnie, find a team that needs him. With a 17-point lead and just minutes to go, Rick provided what was arguably the worst single performance in the history of the NFL. In the AFC Championship game against Denver, to the surprise and dismay of virtually everyone, Rick actually got into the game. Rick Dockery was the third-string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns.

Playing for pizza by john grisham