Basketball Game

The story begins when Allen and his parents are moving from Arkansas to Nashville because of his Father, who works as a preacher. His father has to preach in Nashville instead of Arkansas, which is the reason why they are moving.
When they arrive in Nashville, it is still summer holidays and therefore there are still 2 months until the school begins. These summer days, Allen spends most of his time reading and drawing pictures of buildings. One day when Allen is sitting in the front yard, the girl next door, Rebecca, sits beside him and starts a conversation. This is the first time ever Allen talks with a white girl, therefore he is not quite comfortable under their conversation and does not really know how he has to behave in front of her. When she finally left, Allen felt relieved and hopped no one had seen them together. As time went by, they started spending more time together, but they were seeing each other on the sly so no one could see them. In their society it was deeply unacceptable for a white girl to talk to a black guy, which is the reason why they only met secretly. Unfortunately, one day they get busted. After that, their parents had to give them permission to see each other, but only in non public places like Allen’s backyard, where they could play basketball. By time, they start falling in love with each other. When Rebecca’s father realized that they were falling in love, he decided to sell their house and move to another place in September. Even though Allen and Rebecca promised each other to keep in touch, they did not. When school started, Allen got a new girlfriend, she was the prettiest and the most beautiful black girl he ever had seen, Eloise was her name.
One day in the Christmas vacation, Allen and his dad went shopping in a shopping mall. In this shopping mall he surprisingly saw Rebecca for the first time in a month with another white girl. Allen started shouting her name several times which made her turn around and look at him and then turn away again. He hoped that she had not seen him and continued shouting. When he wanted to grab her by the shoulder he suddenly felt his father’s hand. He realized that it was her, and also that she heard him, unfortunately he could not do anything but cry.
Allen is a teenager boy who wants to be an artist, a fact he is keeping carefully hidden because of his father who wants him to be a preacher or minister. He is not that good at talking to girls because he is shy and has almost no experience with them. For example when he is going to “do it” with Gloria, he ask her to take hers out and when she ask him what, he think “had he said the wrong thing? But he couldn’t have. She had to have a “thing” too, and if she did, she had to get it out” Another example is when he is get Eloise as a girlfriend. He did not talk with her that much, because he doesn’t know how to talk to a girl, instead he did what he is doing best, and he draws a sketch of her and gave it to her.
Allen’s mother is looking white and has straight black hair hanging down her back. As Allen said, she is a quiet and soft spoken person. She is the right opposite of his father. She is not talking too much, but when she did, it was only smart talking.
Allen’s father, Rev. Anderson was born in Mississippi and raised in Arkansas. He had come up “the hard way” as he describes himself. He is a medium-sized black man and a preacher. Always dressed in a dark suit, vest, and tie and he never took them off. He is loud and loves to make good jokes or stories and besides this, he is tough father too.
It is a typical family, where the father is working to earn some money and is the “boss” of the family, while the mother is taking care of the house.
Rebecca is the girl next door. She is white and around same age as Allen. In the beginning she is not looking very well in Allen’s eyes, because of hers brace, but later when she got it off, she started to look better in Allen’s eyes. She had thin lips and brown hair. But it was her eyes that got Allen´s attention.
The novel starts in in-Medias-res, the book is told in third person with a single viewpoint to Allen. The story takes places in America, Nashville 1956. The story starts in summer of 1956 and ends in Christmas; goes about 6 months from the beginning to the end.
I think racism and love is the themes in this novel. In that time in America, there was racism against black people. It was hard times for blacks in America, but this book show us how love/friendship between two persons can break all the rules.