Desperation Passes by Phil Hutcheon, the first publication by Tuleburg Press, is set for a Nov. 15 publication.

It’s novel of “love and football, not necessarily in that order.”

The full synopsis:

A sex scandal, a pair of shootings, and internal racism complicate an obscure college team’s quest for an epic bowl game victory. Black alumni leader Arthur Allenby and white counselor Malcolm Wade join forces to help the CSU team face these and other challenges while struggling to salvage their own embattled romances. Desperation Passes celebrates interracial friendships and emerging leadership roles for African-Americans but ridicules the hypocrisy of administrators who overpay opportunistic head coaches while ignoring the academic deficiencies and dismal graduation rates of student-athletes.

Hutcheon is a Rice University PhD and a career college professor and mentor to minority student-athletes. His first novel, Nobody Roots for Goliath, about college basketball, was Midwest Book Review’s Small Press Bookwatch “Reviewer’s Choice” for January 2007, with a rating of “highly recommended.” Desperation Passes is his second novel.

The publishing is funded by a donation from the Marian Jacobs Literary Forum and led by Stockton writer and community activist Paula Sheil, in collaboration with authors Robert Reinarts, Bruce Crawford, Tama Brisbane, and Jose Cantu, Tuleburg Press is dedicated to publishing works of literary merit and educational value.

For more information on the book, including press materials, click here.