A UnreTestimonials: "CHASING THE LION" lve

"Dinerman's insightful chronicle and commentary brought  back many memories from my own prep-school experience. This is a must-read for anyone interested in getting a better understanding of  prep-school life in our era, as well as today."

Bob Fisher, Former Chair And CEO Of Gap Inc.


"For 25 years, Rob Dinerman has distinguished himself as a squash historian and writer,as well as a player, and now he's come up with this very entertaining story."

 Sharif Khan, 12-time North American Open champion


"I have known Rob for at least 30 years and have known of him for even longer.  Rob was a standout squash professional but his greatest contribution to the sport has been his ability to document various aspects of the game through his magical writings.
Rob will go down in squash history as one of our great contributors.”  

Paul Assaiante, Head Coach Of Trinity College, 12-time NCAA Champions (1999-2010)


"Rob Dinerman has written a memoir that views a prestigious New England prep school through the eyes of an adolescent struggling to come to terms with an academic and social pressure-cooker. This is anything but the average teenager -- no Holden Caulfield here. Instead we have a youth who remembers minute details others would have quickly forgotten and grimaces even as he willingly conforms to competitive pressures. His extraordinary power of recall allows him to revisit the nooks and crannies of his four years spent on the leafy campus and to dredge up experience after awkward experience. His fabulous memory is also a prison that will never allow him to forget, turn the page on the past or empathize with others. A teenager's angst is as oppressive today as it was 40 years ago. This is the power of this memoir.

"Whether you've wondered what goes on behind the walls of a prep school or studied there, you will be surprised at the lengths the protagonist will go to stay ahead of the pack in the classroom or on the basketball court. He manages to win acceptance to both Harvard and Yale -- and the stupifying basis for his choice captures the single-minded pursuit of achievement that characterizes so many such schools. Despite his ambivalence toward Exeter, the protagonist remains intensely loyal. His dedication is admirable but also inexplicable given the pain the protagonist experiences as he completes his prep school experience.

"Mr. Dinerman's memoirs cast an eccentric look at a most traditional school. But even the harsh light of his gaze fails to fully illuminate either the school or the author, which remain entangled in an embrace that is half bunny, half bear hug."

Nelson Graves, Phillips Exeter Class of '72


I have known Rob (or Robbie, as I called him then and will always think of him) since we were boys in school together in Manhattan, throwing a pixie football on a closed-off East Side street during recess. Rob's sincerity was always endearing, including his belief that in striking a bat against a lamp-post in Central Park he had caused the great blackout of 1965! Later, in his Yale years, I remember visiting in that dark and gothic dorm room in New Haven, a grey rival for the grey of New York, and finding him insisting on playing squash through intense forearm pain he had been experiencing. True to form, he never quit--like Lombardi, he never knew the word. His loyal friendship, intense sports-mania (a fan's notes indeed!) and analytical and exhaustive mind and memory always distinguished him. Through the years, Rob has shared glimpses of our adolescence that never fail to jog my own memory--they surprise, provoke and give reason to smile. Here, Rob has gathered his storehouse of memories into a real-life A Separate Peace or Catcher in the Rye, shards of looking glass reassembling to show us in a rearview mirror all that we were and were becoming. He illuminates our prep school days in a blizzard of detail, a snowscape not unlike those we experienced in those endless winter days in New Hampshire. To read these pages is to hear my friend again, to smell the grass of the fields where we played touch football, to see the red-brick surrounding the quad, to feel the grit and slam of the wrestling mat. I was ready to leave, and left as early as I could, but I am happy now to shake that snow-globe again and peer within through Rob's comprehending eyes. Rob, it is great to have this gift from you, old friend.

Dalton Delan, Executive Vice President and Chief Programming Officer of 
WETA Public Television and Radio, Washington DC

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