Born and raised in southern Mississippi, John Colton works his way into a scholarship at the prestigious Lassiter University in upstate Connecticut. Nothing in his upbringing, background or history could prepare him for the challenges which he would come to face in his senior year there, trying to play his last season of football in the midst of a continual series of challenges involving his family, his team, his love life, his future, his understandings of America and his very beliefs in the values of mankind.

To work his way through this maze of conflicting influences and events John Colton relies on his brilliant, enigmatic older sister, a captivating and wise English professor, his closest friends, a mystical and street-smart receiver from upstate New York, and the inner disciplines and faiths of his upbringing. American Season is a serious novel, written with an ear for the realities of American culture and youth, a sense of humor and the delights of the language.

It is the simple game of football, strangely, that provides the central focus and resolution to all these swirls of life. As John recounts, late into his last season: It no longer seemed like a simple game to me. It had become a job, a burden. If I'd had to play another game just for my own sake, then I would have called it quits; but this game was no longer about me.