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“Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, An American Town”
By Warren St. John
Spiegel & Grau, $24.95, 307 pages
How do boys from war-ravaged countries come together as a team and create improbable beauty on the soccer field? That’s the question New York Times reporter Warren St. John asks in this tale, set in a small Georgia town established as a refugee resettlement center. At the center of the book is the coach, a Smith College graduate born and raised in Jordan. Resisting the easy route of the TV docudrama, the story has a suspenseful season-on-the-brink feel as St. John lovingly depicts youngsters from Liberia, Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan struggling not only to form a team but also to fit in while maintaining their own identities.