Page & Palette Bookstore, 32 S. Section St. in Fairhope, will present Coach J. T. Curtis of Neal Thompson’s new book, Hurricane Season: a Coach, His Team, and Their Triumph in the Time of Katrina, Saturday, Aug. 4, from 2-4 p.m.

Curtis is head football coach of the John Curtis Christian School in New Orleans, a small school with modest means that his father founded in 1962 and which he and his siblings now run.

Named 2006 Coach of the Year by USA Today, Curtis and his Patriots have won more than 400 games and 21 state championships in 37 years; their only losing season was Curtis’ first and they have gone undefeated 11 times since.

Hurricane Season is a full-access account of the John Curtis Patriots and their miraculous 2005 season. Journalist Neal Thompson vividly illustrates the challenges faced by the players and staff as they struggled to piece together a team and a season following Katrina’s brutal landfall on the bayou.

Thompson focuses on J. T. Curtis, the second-most winning coach in high school football history, and his dogged determination to not only reopen the school and reconstruct his scattered football team, but to refocus the players’ minds on the task of returning to their “normal” lives and, of course, winning games.

Hurricane Season is much more than just a tribute to Coach Curtis and his team’s achievements on the field. Thompson takes readers deep into the lives of the players and their families, revealing the human stories behind Katrina and putting a deeply personal spin on the challenges faced by New Orleanians upon their return to the beleaguered city.

At a pivotal point in Hurricane Season, Thompson cites one of Coach Curtis’ favorite football sayings to his players: “If you get knocked down, get up and chase the ball. You can’t ever let what happened in the past affect what you do in the future.” This refusal to give in to bad fortune lies at the heart of the Patriots’ dramatic football season and, even more so, provides a stirring motto for a city that simply refuses to lay down and die in the face of unprecedented disaster.

Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights calls Hurricane Season “a rousing, well-told tale that is poignant and inspirational. With grace and beauty, Neal Thompson shows us that the human spirit cannot be conquered even in the ashes of Katrina.”

The book’s author, Neal Thompson, is a veteran journalist and writer of the critically acclaimed biography Light This Candle: The Life & Times of Alan Shepard — America’s First Spaceman and Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels and the Birth of NASCAR.

His stories have appeared in “Outside,” “Esquire” and “Men’s Health.” He lives outside Asheville, N.C.

For more information contact Page & Palette at (251) 928-5295, or visit online at www.pageandpalette.com.