"With its bristling intelligence and crystalline prose, this provocative novel secures [James] Boice's status as a player to watch....[A] stunning debut." (starred review)

-- Publishers Weekly

MVP: A NOVEL - Superstar Gilbert Marcus rapes and kills a young woman in a hotel room during the off-season. That's the prologue. MVP is Marcus's life story from conception to his act of incredible violence. Raised an only child -- the son of a difficult and demanding father -- Gilbert Marcus, a basketball player with extraordinary skill, is expected to be the greatest. His life is one of both excessive privilege and immutable obligation. He becomes a monster. James Boice is a startling and exciting new voice in fiction, and MVP is his ambitious and fascinating debut.

"Basketball star Gilbert Marcus, the refined son of an ex-jock, enters the pros straight from high school, gets a rival teammate traded after three straight titles, and is accused of a violent crime while committing adultery. Sound familiar? MVP is a brutally incisive roman a clef. Boice may not be an insider, but he seems to have opinions about Kobe Bryant. His jarring stream-of-consciousness prose clicks once you realize he's given his narcissistic protagonist the deranged neuroses of a Bret Easton Ellis character. His portrait of Marcus is a frightening trip through the misogynistic, homophobic mind of a professional athlete. (A-)"