News
Head Fake has been named to the 2025 PEN America Literary Awards Longlist for Debut Novel.
I am incredibly honored to share that Head Fake has been longlisted for the 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel.
Writing Head Fake was a long and deeply personal journey, and to see it so warmly received by readers and now recognized by such a prestigious award is truly surreal. I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the PEN/Hemingway Award judges for including my novel in this esteemed longlist.
To the readers, reviewers, and everyone who has connected with Mikey’s story, thank you for embracing this book with open hearts and minds.
I also want to thank Maxwell Street Books for believing in Head Fake from the very beginning and helping me bring it to the world. Their support has been invaluable.
Finally, to my family, friends, and mentors—your encouragement, guidance, and belief in me kept me going when I needed it most.
I’m excited to continue this journey and grateful to be part of such an incredible literary community. Thank you all for believing in this story, and for helping bring it to life.
With deep appreciation,
Scott Gordon
Mikey makes everything a joke, even the clinical depression he’s struggled with for years. After a run of failed jobs, he becomes the unlikely basketball coach at a high school for high-risk offenders who are experiencing mental illness. The position becomes suddenly available after the team tried to strangle their last coach.
Every instinct tells Mikey to get as far away from this school as possible. Coaching these kids, who have been arrested for who-knows-what, would be difficult for a normie. For Mikey, it could cause another breakdown and force him right back to living on the street. But he knows that if he has any chance to make his twenty-sixth birthday, he needs to keep this job, even if the school board wants him fired, and the students would rather fight each other than play ball.
This poignant, hilarious, and sometimes uncomfortable novel proves that even the most damaged of us can emerge victorious.
Mikey makes everything a joke, even the clinical depression he’s struggled with for years. After a run of failed jobs, he becomes the unlikely basketball coach at a high school for high-risk offenders who are experiencing mental illness. The position becomes suddenly available after the team tried to strangle their last coach.
What is the book about?
Head Fake is a story about high schoolers and their coach creating a basketball team that may save them in ways therapy and medication can’t. It’s a tale about how we are more than our diagnosis and stronger together than alone.
Head Fake received a Kirkus (starred review) that perfectly captured the novel. “An absorbing, uplifting tale of finding light and self-worth in adversity’s darkest depths.”