At its core, I choose the sunny side is a book about storytelling, the importance of social connection and the search for purpose later in life. Tennis provides the connective tissue, but is not the driving force behind the story. This is a book about how people give meaning to the life they have already led.
Readers familiar with Gordon Forbes will inevitably approach this book with expectations shaped by his earlier book, A Handful of Summers. When I picked up I’ll Take the Sunny Side, I assumed I was in for yet another unsparing account of life on the professional tour. Because I had just finished another ‘life on the tour’ book last week, I even considered this book as a logical sequel. While it contains some stories about Forbes’ time on the tennis circuit, it is not essentially a book on that subject.
From the outset, Forbes makes it clear that this book occupies the interstitial space between fiction and nonfiction. Although the author is largely fact-based, he is refreshingly honest about the liberties he takes in the service of a good story. The men who gather for the recurring senior lunches at their club are not interested in having a few inconvenient facts disrupt the flow of the story. That framing is important because the book is less about documenting events than about exploring how stories function within friendships and over time.
Those lunches form the structural backbone of the book. Forbes and his companions, a group of writers, scientists and editors, wander through conversations about politics, books, sports and aging. Beneath the surface, however, they circle around the same questions repeatedly. What does achievement mean when the obvious ladders have already been climbed? What does purpose look like when there is nothing left to prove? What exactly is a life well lived?
Forbes once understood the idea of ”reaching the top” in a very literal sense through tennis. His friends apply that concept more broadly and gently to happiness, contentment, and fulfillment later in life. No prescription is offered. Instead, the value lies in asking questions themselves. Anyone in or approaching the later stages of life will recognize both the uncertainty and comfort in those conversations.
Tennis obviously remains a recurring point of reference. There is a shared belief among the group that the game was more fun in previous eras and that modern players are too similar to consistently produce compelling matches. That perspective is undeniably influenced by nostalgia. Still, their discussion of how television has influenced tennis, shaped its style, and shaped the on-court personas that appeal to fans raises thoughtful and surprisingly timely questions about what is gained and lost when sports become modern.
One of the most poignant moments in the book is a piece of advice Forbes remembers being given by his father when he left home to go to boarding school. “When you come to a junction, make sure you read the signposts and think carefully: ‘is this the way I want to go?’ You may not have the answers, but make sure you ask the questions.” It’s advice that resonates throughout the book, not as a grand philosophy, but as a habit that you quietly put into practice. By all accounts, Forbes followed this advice well.
Ultimately, I choose the sunny side is not a book about winning, or even about tennis in a competitive sense. Rather, it is a book about defining your own version of the top, and about recognizing that happiness, if achieved carefully, may be the highest destination of all.
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