We are quite excited for author and HO writer James Kobak and his new book TENNIS, ANYONE? The Wimp’s Guide to Tennis and Other Racquet Sports. Jim has been a writer for HO for about five years, so we wanted to let our readers get to know him a bit better. Enjoy this print interview about Jim and his very funny new book which is available on Amazon in paperback and kindle formats.
Tell us about Jim Kobak
I was born in Alexandria, Louisiana because my father was stationed there, among many other places, during World War II. But I grew up in the New York suburbs in Westchester and Fairfield counties. Since marriage and graduation from law school, I’ve mostly lived in New Jersey. We now live in Jersey City because it is convenient to NYC whose amenities we enjoy and where I still have an office to go to from time to time; before that, while our children were at home, we lived in the Montclair area. We have a home in the Adirondacks where we spend increasing amounts of time. I don’t play tennis very often any longer because the lateral movement seems to aggravate some knee problems, but I still climb the smaller mountains or bike nearly every day, especially when we are up north.
I was a busy lawyer for almost fifty years and did a lot of extracurricular activities, projects and teaching for bar associations, law schools and pro bono and public interest groups. I wrote many briefs and authored or edited probably almost as many reports, legal treatises and law review articles. Somehow I found time to write essays and humor pieces, I think I started doing this because I was used to putting pen to paper (and putting pen to paper is still how I mostly write, notwithstanding computers and laptops) and they were a refreshing change from the more studied and serious legal analyses, though some of the same devices and logic actually permeate both; it’s just the perspective and starting premise that are different. One of the things I enjoy is coming up with a sort of weird premise and then seeing what can be done by applying a certain absurdist logic to it. I used some of the humor perspective to try to liven up the legal writing and some of the legal writing discipline to try to tighten up the humor. I wrote a senior thesis on Christopher Marlowe in college on which I spent an inordinate amount of time, and although it helped me earn honors, one of the anonymous professors who commented on it noted that the writing seemed labored and turgid which it undoubtedly was. That was a very valuable critique which has always stayed with me.
What was the inspiration for this book?
I’ve written a lot of humor pieces, and I realized that several of them were, more or less, about tennis or related subjects, undoubtedly because we played and watched a fair amount of tennis at one time. Eventually, it dawned on me that if I added a few pieces, I might have the makings of a book which would be a sort of companion book to my earlier Wimp’s Guide to Cross-Country Skiing. Then as I realized I was not getting any younger, I thought I should sit down and try to do it, just as I was attending to estate planning and otherwise deciding as I approached my dotage what I would do with my life. So I told myself I should do it before I reached my eightieth birthday, which I more or less did.
What was the greatest challenge in completing this book?
Just the persistence of keeping at it despite many distractions.
What is the greatest joy you experienced in completing this book?
Just finishing it up but also taking the time to recall or look up things about tennis and other, newer sports like paddle tennis and pickle ball even though I hardly ever play them.
What do you hope readers take away from this book?
Enjoyment, learning something and perhaps becoming more interested in tennis and realizing that perspective about one’s foibles is probably more important, and certainly more realistic than mastery of many activities.
Do you have other writing projects either ready to go or in the back of your mind? Where can people find your work?
I am currently finishing up a children’s book titled Eric the Skier which is a humorous treatment of outdoor activities and environmental issues. It grew out of stories I told my children, and particularly the youngest, on long drives up to the Adirondacks from the New York area. The children are now a newly retired school teacher and artist who I hope will illustrate the book, a state assemblywoman in Illinois, and a very dedicated and accomplished lawyer and director of litigation and policy for a legal services organization. In a way, working on the book helps reminds me of them as children though the characters in the book bear only the faintest resemblance to any of them.
As mentioned, I wrote a previous humorous “guide” to cross-country skiing which is available on Amazon as is a satiric novel about a law firm titled “Up Front from Behind.” I contribute short pieces from time to time to Humor Outcasts and articles or op eds appear from time to time elsewhere. I have a whole raft of legal publications ranging from treatises to law journal articles, but I wouldn’t inflict citations to them on unsuspecting readers. I’ve recently taken up writing villanelles as a hobby, mostly just to see if I could do it.