A Sharp Endless Need

“A Sharp Endless Need is a brilliant novel, so alive and vibrating that it took my breath away. Crane writes with piercing, heartbreaking insight about sacrificing the future for the present, with complex characters who navigate adolescence, desire, and basketball, and all the ways in which we make and break ourselves again and again. Crane is fearless, ferocious, and blessed with the kind of vision that lets you see everything in real time and find your way to something exceptional.”—Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here

“A Sharp Endless Need is a vibrant, beautiful book not only brimming with stunning prose and sharp, quick dialogue but also offering a thoughtful and gentle meditation on the why behind affections: why people love what they love, what keeps people returning, what gets people to stay until they no longer can. It is a book that pushed me to reconsider devotion and the many shapes it can take.”—Hanif Abdurraqib, New York Times bestselling author of There’s Always This Year

“A poetic story about ambition, desire, grief, and love . . . Crane’s writing is honest, engrossing, and full of heart—a slam dunk.”—Emily Austin, author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

“No one writes about basketball and the body the way Marisa Crane does. A Sharp Endless Need is the rare sports novel that both the most rabid fan and someone who’s never seen a game will love. Crane has crafted a novel filled with sweat and longing, striking a balance between tenderness, ecstasy, and wry humor that leaves no corner of the heart unexplored. It’s a gorgeous queer love story that both cuts and heals my teenage heart.”—Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl

“Marisa Crane’s A Sharp Endless Need is more than a basketball novel—it is a richly evocative and nostalgic book, a propulsive and tender narrative, told with compassion and intelligence. Crane beautifully captures desire and competitiveness. This is the basketball novel I’ve been waiting for!”—Brandon Hobson, author of Where the Dead Sit Talking

“In A Sharp Endless Need, Crane writes with startling rawness, clarity, and lyricism about that precious time right before adulthood, when who we are—and who we'd like to be—is still fragile and often just out of reach. Full of soul, beauty, nostalgia, and brilliance, this book reads like a love letter to adolescent longing, if love letters could dribble a basketball in circles around you and score point after point. I loved every second of it, even (or maybe especially) while it was breaking my heart.”—Gabrielle Korn, author of Yours for the Taking

“Marisa Crane’s A Sharp Endless Need is a triumph of raw emotion and intense storytelling. After reading, you’ll want to dust off your sneakers and hit the court that is life. . . . A truly brilliant novel from a truly brilliant and empathetic soul.”—Morgan Talty, bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez