The lack of literary interest in the game is surprising, since it serves as the perfect lens through which to examine our fractured state: its ingrained prejudices, gender distortions, money lust, and, above all, the culture of brute violence that has come under increased scrutiny of late.

For Electric Literature, Ravi Mangla reflects on Don DeLillo’s great American football novel End Zone and his own waning love of a game designed for “real men.”