For years now, Mac (Marisa) Crane has blown me away with their heart-wrenching prose and narrative bravery. Everything they write—poetry, non-fiction, and fiction—is a love letter to our undeniable humanity. Their new novel, A Sharp Endless Need, is no exception. It’s a story centered on Mack Morris, a high school basketball player on the brink. They’re hoping to be recruited by a top college program, escape their Pennsylvania hometown, and close the electric space between them and their best friend and teammate Liv. It’s all just right there in front of them…and yet. Mack is made of want and dread and pain and reaching, reaching, reaching. This novel made me feel desperately alive in just the way that sports do. When I turned the final page, I thought, “This book ruined my night. And made my life.”
I was lucky enough to talk to Mac about this love letter to basketball, queer desire, and small-town darkness and dreaming. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Jen St. Jude
I can tell this book is close to your heart (and now mine too). Tell us about your process of writing it, and ultimately how it found the perfect home for publication?
Mac Crane
Oh gosh. I put off writing this book for forever because I had no idea how to do its heart justice. I didn’t want to just write about my adolescence, exactly as it happened to me. It wasn’t that interesting and didn’t carry the emotional weight that I always want my novels to have. But I knew I wanted to write about first love as both the sport of basketball and someone who you can love basketball alongside. And I wanted to write into the idea that nothing could compare to that high, that one might be chasing that high for the rest of their life. At the same time, I wanted to interrogate how your first love can turn on you, how basketball, which was a source of joy for Mack as a child slowly becomes a terrifying, painful thing—because of pressure, because of the politics of recruiting, because of the capitalism and commodification at play, because of the terror of perfectionism. Paralleled with that is the other first love turning on them because of a million reasons—both internal and external—it’s 2004 in Pennsylvania, religion, parent pressure, internalized and externalized homophobia, etc. Where does that leave you when you feel betrayed by both? While also dealing with the enormity of grief and the conflicting desire for and avoidance of the future? How do you navigate your identity that is contingent upon the sport? Contingent upon always loving it even if it doesn’t always love you back?
Jen St. Jude
The intersection of sports and literature is at best largely unexplored, and at worst, regarded with contempt. It’s my very favorite space, and I’m not alone. Why did you choose to write this story? And how do you think literary fiction can capture the experience of being an athlete in a way other mediums can’t?
Mac Crane
It’s my favorite space, too. Especially sports, literature, and queerness. Another reason it took me so long to write was because I internalized the idea that basketball wasn’t Literary enough for the lit world. That it wouldn’t be taken seriously, wouldn’t be treated with the gravity it deserves. But then I read gorgeous basketball writing by Ross Gay and Hanif Abdurraqib and their work gave me permission to say fuck everyone else, this is meaningful to me so I’m going to write about it.
I think there are so many films about sports because viewers love an underdog story. They want to root for someone. They want the team to win the big game.
And they want a hero. But we don’t often get that much interiority with the exception of voiceover. Literary fiction allowed me to dig deep into Mack’s psychology, desires, obsessions, fears, ambitions, and motivations—to center those things instead of winning the championship or setting a record or some other sport-oriented measure of the ultimate success. I wanted the success to lie in the excavation of this player.
Jen St. Jude
The novel is centered on the main character, Mack, who is a star athlete, top recruit, and a promising young talent. But they’re wracked with grief in the wake of their father’s death. They’re consumed by longing for their best friend and teammate, Liv. They’re under tremendous athletic pressure. How do they cope? Why did you want to show this experience on the page?
Mac Crane
I will try to keep this answer short because I could write pages upon pages in response. But yeah, Mack is facing a lot and they have basically no means of coping in a healthy way. Yeah, they channel some feelings into the game but what happens when the very coping skill you have—the game—is also a major source of despair, stress, and depression? Where do you turn to when it feeds the very cycle you want to escape? Having grown up in this time and place, I can tell you that the only tools I knew about for coping were drugs and alcohol. There was no talk of therapy or mental health. Of self-care and support groups. I’d never heard anyone say the words depression or anxiety except in a derogatory or punishing way. But everyone drank in each other’s basements, everyone smoked weed on bake rides on backroads. We did ecstasy (back when it was called that!), we did acid, and coke. I snorted Adderall before school so I could get through the day in something somewhat resembling a happy mood. I was basically crumbling, but these short moments of intoxication were a blessing, a reprieve. And also, a necessity. The drugs actually kept me coming back to the game. Drinking after having the worst game of my life helped me laugh it off with my teammates. Helped me return with a fuck-it attitude that allowed me to keep trying, to persevere. It’s not unlike writing in this way. You need thick skin, you need to be okay with having horrible games, with getting screamed at, with handling rejection. Only now, I have more coping strategies than “let’s get drunk.” Substances were such a big part of my teen years as well as those of competitive athletics as a whole that it would have felt like a disservice to leave them out. It would have been a different book that shied from the truth, from the dark side of competitive sports, from the reality that so many of us face. And then when sports are over, when we retire? Well, we can save that for another day, but it’s no secret so many retired athletes have substance use disorder.
Let’s just say, despite what some people might think about the believability of this book, doing drugs doesn’t necessarily ruin an athlete’s performance. Jim Carroll, of The Basketball Diaries, played in the McDonald’s All-American Game while addicted to heroin. Only the best basketball players in the entire country play in that game.
Jen St. Jude
Mack’s sexuality feels like a lit match held at arm’s length. They know it’s there. They feel the heat of it; even want it to burn right down to their skin. But they don’t quite know what to do with this hungry, violent, desperate light surrounded by so much darkness. In what way does basketball allow them to live through their sexuality? In what ways does it ask them to deny it?
Mac Crane
I love this question. Sports are so sexual and erotic, and they’re a socially acceptable stage for eroticism to play out. People embrace, they jump into each other’s arms, they wrap their legs around each other’s waists, they spank each other, they grab at waistbands, they kiss each other on the cheeks or foreheads in celebration, they exchange sweat and spit and sometimes blood. Defense in the post basically consists of bumping and grinding like a middle school dance. It’s inherently an erotic experience, to get so close to other people, to get to know their bodies so intimately, while also trying to stop their body from achieving its goal. And that eroticism is so aggressive and violent. When basketball is played at its highest intensity, it can be so violent. And being closeted at a young age can be a really scary and angry experience. I think Mack channels their anger, at themself and others, through basketball. They can let their aggression out on the court, they can wrestle on the floor for loose balls, they can foul someone hard. They can also love Liv out loud on the court, at least in the way that basketball allows. They’re all chemistry, all special hand signals, all miniature connections and private conversations, even in front of an audience. Because basketball is their first language, their chemistry on the court is akin to walking down a busy street in broad daylight holding hands.
Jen St. Jude
Related to the last question; basketball also gives Mack a place to shed their gender. Or, more likely, it’s the opposite: It’s the place they’re most themself in every way. I so loved this line: “And would the two girls have names? Names people knew without their jerseys? What if one of the girls wasn’t really a girl at all, but something she had no language for?” In this way, what does basketball mean to Mack?
Mac Crane
Basketball means transcendence. Transcending earthly things, mortal things, like gender, sexuality, labels, body image, anxieties, money, shame, etc. To Mack, basketball means turning themself into a small, untouchable god. How divine, to be untouchable, if even for a short time.
Jen St. Jude
This story also touches on what it feels like to be an adolescent with parents; which is to say, someone coming of age while they learn or confirm their parents’ flaws, mysteries, disappointments, and demons. It’s an experience most people have lived through, I imagine. How did you think about the parents in this story? Did your own experience as a parent deepen your understanding of them?
Mac Crane
I think it’s such an interesting time in one’s life when they realize their parents are people with histories, and desires, and issues, and selfishness. I think before that point, parents can feel abstract, or like a tool for getting what you want. Conversely, they can feel like obstacles to getting what you want (like, for instance, my 4 year old wants cookies for dinner and I won’t let him—what am I but a mere obstacle in that moment?). Or they can be an added terror in your life, something else you have to endure. But regardless, we deny them a certain personhood by flattening them via our limited perspective. And sometimes that’s necessary, especially when they are abusive or traumatizing. But in this particular story, I wanted the parents to be complicated by their own shit in a way that the characters can actually recognize and understand. I wanted Mack to step outside of their own despair from time to time in order to examine their parents’ own particular sadnesses, and neuroses, and compulsions. It’s an act of empathy, of compassion and seeing. It’s a kindness, to choose to witness someone. And it is a choice. We can live our entire lives refusing to look, to see. Or choosing to only see certain types of individuals. And though our parents are older, have more experience, and are supposed to be the models for behavior and living, we all know that hardly means a thing when it comes to reality. And when Mack chooses to bear witness to their mom and late dad, they’re maybe, just maybe, able to give themself some of that kindness and understanding in return.
And yeah, my own experience as a parent has absolutely deepened my understanding of the parents in this book. Every day that I am stressed, depressed, anxious, or going through a problem but I still have to parent through it, I constantly wonder what my children see, what they feel in me. And I want to push all of it down so I can parent to the best of my ability but that’s not always possible. And it’s not honest. And I think about how, without making my children take on the burden of my issues, how can I make them understand that as long as we are alive, we will all be dealing with a fuck ton of shit, that that is, unfortunately, a symptom of being alive?
Jen St. Jude
Although I imagine so many different kinds of people will find themselves in Mack and in these pages, who is your ideal reader?
Mac Crane
I mean, really, the ideal reader is me. I needed to read this book as badly as I needed to write it. After that, queer millennial basketball players and athletes.
Jen St. Jude
This title, A Sharp Endless Need, is perfect. It really does capture the feelings in the book so well. How did you land on it?
Mac Crane
It’s a line from the epigraph. “I want zero regrets. No, I want to marry my regrets. To find a way to adore them for their sharp endless need.” It just felt right as a title. It felt like it captured the achy ongoing yearning of this book—yearning for so many things, in so many directions. Not just for a person, but a certain life, a certain greatness. What does it mean to have a need that doesn’t go away? What does it mean to have a need that hurts so bad and to adore it anyway?
Jen St. Jude
I mentioned the world of sports literature is small, but it’s still rich, necessary, and growing all the while. What works informed your writing? Which books or other pieces is this novel in conversation with?
Mac Crane
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese was a huge influence. The way he writes ice hockey was mind-blowing. It was gorgeous, lyrical, and made me want to be an ice hockey player. Plus, the book is about a First Nations boy in a residential school system so it’s extremely traumatic but he finds transcendence and joy in hockey—at least for some time. And that was moving and inspirational for me. Of course, Mack’s trauma looks different and is from a white settler perspective, but I admired how Wagamese handled a traumatized teen character finding an outlet, a gorgeous source of pleasure.
Jen St. Jude
Is there anything else you want readers to know about A Sharp Endless Need that might shape their relationship to the book?
Mac Crane
If you’ve ever formed your identity around something you do or something you love, you’ll understand the heart of this book. And you’ll understand that it’s not so much a love story as it is a story about how to cope with the pain of loving: the game, a teammate, a parent, a coach, a future, a single shot or crossover that makes it all worth it.
Jen St. Jude
Finally, the ending, to me, felt both shocking and inevitable. Why did you want this world to end here? Without spoiling anything, what place did you want to leave readers as they turned the final pages?
Mac Crane
Without spoiling! haha well, I didn’t want the ending to be tidy. Nothing about Mack or Liv’s world is tidy, for the duration of the novel. Giving them a tidy ending would be doing them and their stories a grave injustice. I wanted to leave the reader in that perfect space between hope and ambivalence, between a future they can imagine and a present they have to sit with. The consequences Mack must live with. An unknown future that still might, against all odds, have some beauty to it. But you can’t reach for it too hard, or else it might just disappear.
FICTION
A Sharp Endless Ned
By Mac Crane
The Dial Press
Published May 13, 2025
