Book Review: "Speech Team" by Tim Murphy

Growing up in the Massachusetts suburbs, Thomas "Tip" Murray dreamed of a glamorous life as a screenwriter, a foreign correspondent, or a film critic. Now in his early 40s, he couldn't have gotten further from those dreams: he's a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, living in Providence with his solid and dependable husband, Marcus, and he works as a writer for an educational nonprofit.

One day he hears from his high school best friend, Natalie, that Pete, one of their classmates and Speech Team members, has committed suicide. While neither of them had thought much about Pete in many years, they were shocked to see that in his farewell post on social media, he mentioned that their Speech Team coach, Gary Gold, once made a devastating comment to him. Pete's post triggered some memories for Tip, memories of his own insult at the hands of Mr. Gold.

The more Tip thinks about Pete and Mr. Gold, the more obsessed he becomes with high school memories—the positive and the negative. He and Natalie (mostly at his urging) decide to look up two of their other classmates: Anthony, who is now a famous fashion designer, and Jennifer, the once-intense intellectual who is now a college professor. After some awkward moments, the four reunite and rehash some old memories. And then they discover one thing they all have in common: each was stung by an insult from Mr. Gold.

The quartet finds that Mr. Gold is still alive and now living in Florida, so they decide to take a road trip down there and confront him. But what they find is not at all what they were expecting. And Tip is slowly losing his grip, which puts his sobriety and his marriage at risk.

This book really hit close to home for me, but that only made me love it more. I went to high school in the 1980s and graduated the same year as the characters did. I struggled with my sexuality and was bullied quite a bit, much like Tip. And I had a high school teacher who bullied me, and more than 35 years later, some of the things he said still linger in my mind. (No one needs to worry about me confronting him, however, since he died a few years ago.)

I was so excited when I saw this book at the store, because I'm a huge fan of the way Tim Murphy writes. (Christodora was an utterly fantastic book.) This is, as I've read, a much more personal book for Murphy, and it definitely felt that way. It was tremendously thoughtful, and thought-provoking.