The Team - Hardcover

Perkins, Dawson

3.6

10 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0972456279 ISBN 13: 9780972456272

Publisher: Agate, 2004

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"Dawson Perkins has a cinematic eye and a true gift for dialogue that demands not just to be read, but devoured. The Team is smart, strong, and unforgettable, and Perkins is carving out a new literary space in which the voices of Black women resonate."-Jill Nelson

In The Team, Dawson Perkins tells the story of a successful young African American professional who has sealed away the trauma of being raped, at 19, by the future NBA star who led her college's basketball team. But when one of her rapist's teammates joins her company-and the two find themselves mutually attracted-she must come to grips with the demons of her past all over again. A smart, propulsive, indelible debut.

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From the Inside Flap:

Love enters our lives in unexpected ways and at unexpected times, whether we’re ready for it or not. And sometimes, love can emerge from the darkest and most painful corners of our pasts. The Team is one such love story—a propulsive and compelling story that’s so real, and so unforgettable, that it’s sure to be the smash literary debut of summer 2004.

Gwen Fagan is a driven young black professional, living in Atlanta, who doesn’t much care that her social life is nearly nonexistent. To the rest of the world, she’s formidable, imperious, and utterly focused on professional success. But this is a carefully cultivated front designed to hide the vulnerability and pain that stem from her troubled past, one marked by personal trauma and family tragedy.

Gwen’s ordered world is upended when she learns that a figure from her past—ex-basketball star Xavier Dean—is joining her firm. The two are forced into intimate proximity when Gwen’s unwitting supervisor assigns Xavier to work on a project that Gwen is leading. Distrustful of Xavier, Gwen is guarded to the point of hostility, but she’s continually struck by the courtesy and respect he extends to her—and by his good looks.

Xavier is unaware of their shared past, but as he develops an attraction to Gwen (an attraction to which she gradually warms in response), she steadfastly hides their past connection—how in college, ten years before, Gwen was brutally raped by NBA star Terry Stuart, Xavier’s friend and teammate, a memory she has tried desperately to repress. As her relationship with Xavier deepens, Gwen finds it harder and harder to cope with having buried so much of the unresolved pain that resulted from her rape. When Terry Stuart reenters Gwen’s life, returning to Atlanta with his NBA team, events build to an explosive pitch that will change all three of their lives forever.

The Team is a fast-paced and cinematic take on a contemporary relationship that also offers a shatteringly realistic depiction of the psychic cost exacted by rape on even the strongest-seeming survivors. Dawson Perkins has created an indelible love story that’s gripping, passionate, and touching, and features an unforgettably real heroine who is both emotionally bare and defiantly brave.

About the author
Dawson Perkins lives in South Carolina with her husband and son and works as a manager for a financial services firm. She is currently at work on her second novel.

About the Author:

Dawson Perkins lives in South Carolina with her husband and family. The Team is her first novel.

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