Instant Classic

From the author of the USA TODAY bestseller and Reese’s Book Club Pick The Three Lives of Cate Kay comes an enthralling new novel about a young movie director who bets her career on making a film about an overlooked trailblazer in women’s basketball and in the process finds her own voice.

With only one more film under contract after two flops, movie director Marion May is at a career crossroads and in desperate need of a win. It feels fated when at a Lakers game she meets Jaz Jones, a magnetic WNBA player, who pitches her on an idea. Jaz tells Marion about her coach, Harper Kidd, a once-brilliant athlete whose legacy was erased before it could truly begin.

In the 1950s, Harper Kidd was a rising star on the Hanes Hosiery team until the end of the season when everything unraveled, and she was forced to leave the game she loved. Only decades later, when a young, fiercely talented Jaz enters her world, does Harper find her way back to the court—and to herself. As Marion sets out to write and direct Harper’s story, the project becomes something more. Immersed in a lineage of women who fought to play, to love, and to be seen, Marion begins to confront the parts of herself she’s long kept hidden.

Kate Fagan’s Instant Classic is a radiant love letter to women’s sports and queer identity as well as a gripping narrative that explores how the stories we tell can bridge decades, heal old wounds, and lead us back to who we truly are.