There was a thought that kept running through author, Narberth native, and former White House stenographer Beck Dorey-Stein\u2019s mind as her latest book faced obstacle after obstacle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
But like the 2017 Eagles team and its quarterback Nick Foles, who served as a source of inspiration for Dorey-Stein and one of her characters, she persevered, challenging reluctance she faced about the book\u2019s strong focus on female soccer players while also juggling the demands of a newborn and parenthood.<\/p>\n
Spectacular Things, released July 1, tells the story of three women: single mom Liz Lowe and her two daughters, Mia and Cricket. It follows the sisters through life-altering struggles, like Mia \u2014 who is named for one of Liz\u2019s idols, soccer star Mia Hamm \u2014 who takes on a greater caregiving role growing up to support her sister\u2019s soccer aspirations. Years later, she is diagnosed with chronic kidney disease after giving birth to her first child on the same day that Cricket is in the final soccer match of the Olympics. Cricket, named for Hamm\u2019s teammate, Kristine Lilly, must then decide what she can give up for her sister in return.<\/p>\n
The book, the July pick for Reese Witherspoon\u2019s book club, pushes readers to contemplate \u201cwhat we are willing to give up for people we love, and the danger of ever expecting anything in return,\u201d Dorey-Stein, 39, said.<\/p>\n
Dorey-Stein will be back in her hometown Thursday to speak about the book <\/b>at Narberth Borough Hall at 6:30 p.m. <\/a><\/p>\n While women\u2019s soccer has <\/b>made headlines in recent years, Dorey-Stein said she had to overcome a number of obstacles to publish a book about female athletes.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are so few women\u2019s sports novels out there, which is why I was so proud of [this book], and also why I had to fight so hard to write it,\u201d Dorey-Stein said.<\/p>\n In many ways, Spectacular Things is a \u201clove letter\u201d to soccer, something that\u2019s been quietly building in Dorey-Stein for decades. She began playing the sport as a child, following in her older brother\u2019s footsteps, before going on to play travel league soccer as well as for her high school team, the Lower Merion Aces. <\/p>\n The book draws on a number of sources of inspiration beyond her own passion for the sport, including the 2019 U.S. women\u2019s national team, <\/b>which won the FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup that summer in France. While attending the team\u2019s ticker tape parade in New York that July, Dorey-Stein got the idea for the book.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just one of the best days of my life,\u201d Dorey-Stein recalled, noting how empowering it was to see so many people celebrating women\u2019s soccer. But the market for such a book was untested and required her to not only reshape the narrative, but also continually go to bat for it, she said.<\/p>\n Foles also inspired one pivotal moment in the book. In the midst of the Olympics final match, Cricket is brought off the bench to goaltend after the team\u2019s starter is injured, much the way Foles came off the bench late in the 2017 season for an injured Carson Wentz, ultimately leading the team to victory in Super Bowl LII<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was important that \u201cNick Foles and Cricket [have] the same journey where it\u2019s like they\u2019re just going to be riding the bench forever, it seems, and then all of a sudden they get their moment,\u201d Dorey-Stein said.<\/p>\n In some ways, it\u2019s not unlike Dorey-Stein\u2019s own story. After serving as a stenographer in the White House for five years, predominantly under the Obama administration, Dorey-Stein penned her best-selling memoir, From the Corner of the Oval<\/a>. Her second book and first novel, Rock the Boat, followed in 2021, but in the interim, Dorey-Stein said she felt \u201cunmoored\u201d and in need of her own \u201cCinderella story.\u201d<\/p>\n Determined to write a book about women\u2019s soccer, she worried if that book would ever come together, noting writing it was \u201creally, really difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere were so many times I just was like, it\u2019s not going to happen,\u201d Dorey-Stein said.<\/p>\n But like Foles and Cricket, she held firm to her belief and made it happen.<\/p>\n Book Event: Beck Dorey-Stein<\/p>\n \ud83d\udccdNarberth Borough Hall \ud83d\udcc5 Thursday, Sept. 4, 6:30 p.m. \ud83c\udf10 narberthbookshop.com<\/a><\/p>\n This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer\u2019s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com\/donate<\/a>. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org\/supporters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a thought that kept running through author, Narberth native, and former White House stenographer Beck Dorey-Stein\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,77,136674,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-395416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-spectacular-things-beck-dorey-stein-reeses-book-club","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115142221204894318","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}