From Publishers Weekly
In this detailed account of a sport few Americans know much about, Zug, a former Dartmouth squash player and freelance writer, intersperses throughout his narrative elements of surprise with analogies and references to draw readers into this unfamiliar terrain. For instance, he begins by explaining that squash, known primarily as an elitist endeavor reserved for prep schoolers and yuppies, developed in London's Fleet Prison in the early 1800s. But Zug makes squash relevant by capturing an interesting parallel between the game and American social movements as he details squash's evolution from the pastime of America's most exclusive universities and clubs to the emergence of women on the American squash scene in the 1920s and America's fitness obsession in the late 1970s and '80s, which made the game accessible to the middle class and brought squash courts to every neighborhood YMCA from coast to coast. Furthermore, realizing that a sport is only as compelling as its champions, Zug presents colorful bios of the game's best and most eccentric players, including college dropout and Deadhead Mark Talbot, John McEnroe-like Victor Niedhoffer (who retired in his prime to protest the sport's anti-Semitic stance in the 1960s) and Roshan Khan (from a famous squash family, his "lusty" lifestyle led Ted Kennedy to say he came from the "Irish part of Pakistan"). While only squash fanatics will find this detailed work a must read, Zug's passion for and knowledge of the game make this a unique addition to the library of sports histories. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Who would have thought squash, the game in which a little ball is smashed into a wall with racquets, could be so endlessly fascinating, so steeped in culture and history? Zug, a longtime squash player, begins in the 1500s, when tennis was all the rage. But by the early 1700s, there were variations of the game, including one called racquets, created by inmates in the Fleet, a British debtors' prison. From there we move smoothly on to the 1800s, when students at elite Harrow School, just outside London, transmuted racquets into the game we now call squash. The author charts the modern history of squash--from the 1860s to the present day--with gusto, introducing us to dozens of the game's best and most flamboyant players (best and flamboyant seem to go hand-in-hand in squash circles), explaining why this seemingly simple game is among the most subtle and hard-to-learn sports. It's one of those books about a very specialized topic that somehow turns out to be surprisingly readable even for those unfamiliar with the subject. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
Frank Deford Expert/hacker, hardball/softball, doubles/singles -- all squash devotees should read James Zug's comprehensive and passionate account of the history of their game.


Book Description
The first comprehensive history of squash in the United States, Squash incorporates every aspect of this increasingly popular sport: men's and women's play, juniors and intercollegiates, singles and doubles, hardball and softball, amateurs and professionals. Invented by English schoolboys in the 1850s, squash first came to the United States in 1884 when St. Paul's School in New Hampshire built four open-air courts. The game took hold in Philadelphia, where players founded the U.S. Squash Racquets Association in 1904, and became one of the primary pastimes of the nation's elite. Squash launched a U.S. Open in 1954, but its present boom started in the 1970s when commercial squash clubs took the sport public. In the 1980s a pro tour sprung up to offer tournaments on portable glass courts in dramatic locales such as the Winter Garden at the World Trade Center. James Zug, with access to private archives and interviews with hundreds of players, describes the riveting moments and sweeping historical trends that have shaped the game. He focuses on the biographies of legendary squash personalities: Eleo Sears, the Boston Brahmin who swam in the cold Atlantic before matches; Hashim Khan, the impish founder of the Khan dynasty; Victor Niederhoffer, the son of a Brooklyn cop; and Mark Talbott, a Grateful Dead groupie who traveled the pro circuit sleeping in the back of his pickup. A gripping cultural history, Squash is the book for which all aficionados of this fast-paced, exciting game have been waiting.


About the Author
James Zug was born in Philadelphia in 1969. He captained the squash team at Dartmouth College. A senior writer at Squash Magazine, he has written for The Atlantic Monthly, Outside, The New York Times Book Review and Tennis Week. He holds a master?s in nonfiction writing from Columbia University and lives with his wife in Washington, D.C.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

James Zug, with access to private archives and interviews with hundreds of players, describes the riveting moments and sweeping historical trends that have shaped the game. He focuses on the biographies of legendary squash personalities: Eleo Sears, The Boston Brahmin who swam in the cold Atlantic before matches; Hashim Khan, the impish founder of the Khan dynasty; A fresh and funny take on the perils of dating from a gifted new African American writer.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

For a game said to require, simply, ''a bat, a ball and a wall,'' its lore is rich, and Zug is a good storyteller. — Judy D'Mello

The New Yorker

Something about squash -- the white walls, the cloistered courts, and the cruel ring of a tinned volley -- inspires eccentricity. Zug, a former collegiate player, excels in describing the game’s outsized personalities and how they won clubhouse fame and infamy. (Drilling the ball at your opponent’s back used to be a common tactic.) But his account is hindered by an affection for bureaucratic detail -- court construction, organizing committees, secondary tournament results -- and he buries some of his best material in the footnotes. Still, squash fans will appreciate Zug’s history of the game’s complicated origins among English schoolboys at Harrow in the eighteen-forties, where it was a novice’s version of the medieval game of racquets. The book also serves as an epitaph of sorts, the North American hardball squash on which Zug focusses having been rendered obsolete by the softball version which now prevails in international competition.

Publishers Weekly

In this detailed account of a sport few Americans know much about, Zug, a former Dartmouth squash player and freelance writer, intersperses throughout his narrative elements of surprise with analogies and references to draw readers into this unfamiliar terrain. For instance, he begins by explaining that squash, known primarily as an elitist endeavor reserved for prep schoolers and yuppies, developed in London's Fleet Prison in the early 1800s. But Zug makes squash relevant by capturing an interesting parallel between the game and American social movements as he details squash's evolution from the pastime of America's most exclusive universities and clubs to the emergence of women on the American squash scene in the 1920s and America's fitness obsession in the late 1970s and '80s, which made the game accessible to the middle class and brought squash courts to every neighborhood YMCA from coast to coast. Furthermore, realizing that a sport is only as compelling as its champions, Zug presents colorful bios of the game's best and most eccentric players, including college dropout and Deadhead Mark Talbot, John McEnroe-like Victor Niedhoffer (who retired in his prime to protest the sport's anti-Semitic stance in the 1960s) and Roshan Khan (from a famous squash family, his "lusty" lifestyle led Ted Kennedy to say he came from the "Irish part of Pakistan"). While only squash fanatics will find this detailed work a must read, Zug's passion for and knowledge of the game make this a unique addition to the library of sports histories. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Squash is one of the oldest racquet sports, dating back over 200 years. However, the last history of the game was written in 1930 by New York Times sportswriter Allison Danzig. First-time author Zug fills this void with a thoroughly researched book covering squash from its European beginnings to its adoption by the American upper class to the recent, not wholly successful attempts to effect its transition from elite pursuit to popular pastime, as with tennis and golf. Along the way, Zug profiles all the prominent personalities and storied rivalries in the history of the sport. Boasting a foreword by George Plimpton, this well-crafted book is an excellent example of niche scholarship and would be welcome in any library.-John Maxymuk, Rutgers Univ. Lib., Camden, NJ Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews