Eric Kester

Eric Kester uses dark comedy in Gut Check to examine football culture, body image, brotherhood, and the danger of hiding a concussion. Wyatt wants a place on Grayport's championship team largely because it offers a final chance to connect with his older brother Brett, the celebrated quarterback. Wyatt's size and status as team mascot keep him outside the athletic ideal around him, but Brett's serious head injury forces him into a decision with consequences for both brothers. The town's economic troubles and the team's national attention raise the pressure around that secret. Macmillan published the novel through Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers in 2019, with a later Square Fish edition. Gut Check was also selected by the Junior Library Guild. Kester previously wrote the memoir That Book About Harvard, drawing on his experience at the university and on the school's football team. His first novel for teen readers redirects that observational humor toward masculinity, loyalty, and the cost of treating physical risk as proof of toughness.