Longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and Named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2024
"Head Fake is about how laughter can save us." —Chris Rock, comedian, actor
"An absorbing, uplifting tale of finding light and self-worth in adversity's darkest depths." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Mikey makes everything a joke, even the clinical depression he's struggled with for years. After a run of failed jobs, he becomes the unlikely basketball coach at a high school for high-risk offenders who are experiencing mental illness. The position becomes suddenly available after the team tried to strangle their last coach.
Every instinct tells Mikey to get as far away from this school as possible. Coaching these kids, who have been arrested for who-knows-what, would be difficult for a normie. For Mikey, it could cause another breakdown and force him right back to living on the street. But he knows that if he has any chance to make his twenty-sixth birthday, he needs to keep this job, even if the school board wants him fired, and the students would rather fight each other than play ball.
This poignant, hilarious, and sometimes uncomfortable novel proves that even the most damaged of us can emerge victorious.