Grandmaster
Freshman Daniel Pratzer gets a chance to prove himself when the chess team invites him and his father to a weekend-long parent-child tournament. Daniel, thinking that his father is a novice, can’t understand why his teammates want so badly for them to participate. Then he finds out the truth: as a teen, his father was one of the most promising young players in America, but the pressures of the game pushed him too far, and he had to give up chess to save his own life and sanity. Now, thirty years later, Mr. Pratzer returns to the game to face down an old competitor and the same dark demons that lurk in the corners of a mind stretched by the demands of the game. Daniel was looking for acceptance—but the secrets he uncovers about his father will force him to make some surprising moves himself, in Grandmaster by David Klass.
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This is a book that can remind me to love those random occasions when I find a book sitting on the shelf at a library, and decide to read it. It is unplanned, not on any sort of list, nor anything else. It is just one that I saw, was interested in, and loved all the more because of it.
Grandmaster by David Klass is a book about our main character Daniel. He finds that he isn't very good at life. He has few friends, no girlfriend, and is not very popular. He even isn't very good on his school's chess team, which sucks, because this is one of the few chess teams where they are known for winning at tournaments. So, when the Captain and co-captain of the chess team sit him down and tell him that he and his father have been selected to go to a parent-offspring chess tournament in New York City with some of his classmates, he is confused. It is then revealed that his father was once a Grandmaster (aka someone who is the best at the game of chess), and they are hoping that Daniel's father can be their ace in the hole when winning the tournament. Daniel is now even more confused. His father has not played chess in 30 years and never made it seem like he wanted Daniel to either, not even so much as teaching him about how the pieces work. Why did he not tell Daniel about this? Why did he give up chess in the first place? All these questions are swirling around in Daniel's head as he manages to convince his father to compete. But soon, Daniel finds out that there is more to chess than moving around some fancy pieces, as he sees his dad seemingly crack under the pressure. Can his father make it to the end of the tournament? Will Daniel be able to live with the consequences if he doesn't?
This book is one that, like the Netflix movie The Queen's Gambit, I could see making people want to learn about Chess. You can tell that the author was a chess player when he was younger because he shows a reverence for the game that few authors manage to get across to the reader. This means that for any of this books' faults (of which I can spot very few) this may make readers want to learn chess or take up chess again, which I applaud.
This is a book that manages to show not only the combat that takes place among chess enthusiasts, but also about the larger themes of dealing with your past selves, and understanding that you cannot run from your decisions. When it came to chess, there was just enough to let the uninformed reader understand what is going on, but for the informed reader to see how much Daniel's father truly knows about the game.
What is a real benefit here are the characters. We see that Klass does not give each person on the team a stereotype. The author manages to make them unique in some way, which I appreciate. The major relationship that gets the most focus is between Daniel and his father. The reader can understand both of their perspectives: Daniel wants to develop his sense of self, and he cannot understand why his father would deny such a large part of his young life. His father sees this tournament as a way to come to terms with what he was and who he is now. He gave up chess, went to college, met and married Daniel's mother, and started a family. But there always is the question of the road less traveled. What would have happened if he had stuck with chess? Or, perhaps a better question would be, does he still have what it takes to win, after all these years of having it set aside? I can understand and enjoy reading about all of these different perspectives and ideas, which Klass writes about very well.
If there is one issue with this book it would be...say it with me... the YA romance. This is something that comes into play Daniel, as he finds both a girl at his school, named Britney, who seems to like him, but she already has a crappy boyfriend, and a girl who Daniel meets at the Chess tournament. I do like that Klass does not go the typical route and aim for a love triangle, and I like how the romance between Daniel and the girl he met at the tournament has an impact on the story and his character. Not only does this relationship affect Britney by the end of the story, but it also displays a happy medium for Daniel: he can not only improve at chess, but he can also balance having a girlfriend too.
The only downside with this romance is that I do not remember anything about the girls that Daniel is supposed to be attracted to. Truth be told, this includes their names as well. Perhaps it was because of the fast pace that the author adopted, but I felt like these characters were not given enough time to develop them as I would have liked.
Still, this was a nice fast-paced novel about not only chess but also the feelings we have as teens and adults about the road not taken. I greatly enjoyed this book, and I think you will too. I give it a four out of five.
