| The Eighty-Yard Run | |
| Author: | Irwin Shaw |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Published In: | Esquire |
| Pub Date: | January 1941 |
"The Eighty-Yard Run" is a work of short fiction by Irwin Shaw, originally published in Esquire (January 1941) and first collected in Welcome to the City and Other Stories (1942) by Random House. [1]
The story is one of Shaw’s highly regarded and most anthologized works.[2] [3] [4] [5]
The story is written in the third-person limited omniscient, with Christian Darling as the focal character.Christian is 35-year-old and has been married to his wife Louise since they graduated college. He has in recent years begun drinking. Christian works as a traveling men’s garment salesman. Louise has developed her career as an editor of a fashionable magazine and socializes with impressive figures from the world of fine art and literature. She has extramarital affairs and addresses Christian affectionately with the diminutive "Baby." Louise’s earnings maintains the couple’s luxury lifestyle.
Alienated from his wife’s liberal set and sensing his own relative decline, he sustains himself by the memory of his college football days. At the age of 20, he had returned a pass for 80 yards, an event that has emerged in his memory as an enormous athletic and social triumph. The reception was only in a practice game with his own team members, and he never actually achieved any real success as a college receiver. The story closes with his visit to the old football field. In the twilight, he attempts to duplicate the glory run he had made as a youth. Exhausted at the goal line, he startles a boy and girl making out on the turf. Embarrassed, Christian attempts to justify his behavior: "I —once I played here." He quickly retreats to his hotel.[6] [7] [8]
Literary critic James R. Giles reports that a number of Shaw’s stories "rank with the most distinguished American short fiction, including 'The Eighty-Yard Run.'"[9] He offers "The Eighty-Yard Run" as "an example of Shaw’s craft at its flawless peak."[10] Critic Bart Barnes in The Washington Post calls "The Eighty-Yard Run" among Shaw’s "very best stories."[11] Author and editor Willie Morris recalls reading "The Eighty-Yard Run" as a sixth-grader and considers it "probably my first true introduction to great writing." The story inspired him to pursue a career in literature.[12]
Literary critic Nasrullah Manmbrol writes:
The focal character, Christian Darling, approaches middle-age with only the memory of his fame as a college football player as solace - a fame which he inflates in order to sustain himself as both his personal and professional life deteriorates.[13] The contrast between Christian’s arrested maturation—his wife Louise addresses him as "baby"—and her development of a professional career and social relationships, form a central thematic element. Shaw augments this contrast with the "innocence" of Christian’s Midwest roots and his alienation in New York City - "a center of sophisticated sexual, artistic and political experience."[14] [15]
In an interview with Liz Drivan in 1978, Shaw explained the thematic elements in the story: