Late Return, A

Bill Rees lives in Le Vigan (Sud de France), and makes aprecarious living by selling used books. He studied at UCNW(Bangor) and Birkbeck College. He worked as a reporter fora local newspaper in London before the lure of travel andbookselling led him to take a less conventional path. Hismemoir, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Book Runnerwas published by Parthian in 2011. In recent years Rees hasrediscovered the joys and frustrations of competitive tabletennis. An embarrassingly large amount of Rees’s time andenergies have been devoted to perfecting his backhand topspin. A Late Return goes some way to explaining why.

Bill Rees has been living in the south of France for ten yearsworking as an itinerant bookseller in Montpellier. The onething he misses about England is table tennis. Then he seesan advert to join a club for “experienced players only” andveterans. He starts training immediately, he’s forty and notas fit as he used to be but Bill Rees is returning to the gameà la carte.Covering one Sunday tournament in the depths of Languedocwhen his team bids to make the National Finals, Bill Reesproduces a deeply felt and deeply funny homage to thebeautiful game of ping-pong. Rees shows the sport for whatit is: painful, exhilarating, tactical, fast (especially when hisclub mate Alain is at the table), consuming. All of which isrevealed from the perspective of a Brit playing in Frenchamateur leagues.Conveyed is the pain of competition, the agony of losing andthe joys of victory. The reader is also regaled with a Zen-likeinsight into the sport.For all those athletes who dream of glory being around thecorner and never too late.Contains illustrations by the Monpellier based artist Beachy.