The Art Of Fielding

THE ART OF FIELDING
by Chad Harbach

 

Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2012, Dublin Longlist 2013, LA Times Finalist 2011, NY Times Finalist 2011, PEN/Hemingway Longlist 2012

 

Date Read: February 18, 2012

 

I picked up The Art Of Fielding after reading an article in Vanity Fair about Harbach and his efforts to get this novel published. Interestingly, he had no formal training as a writer and took on this endeavor in his spare time. As a first novel, I think it’s fantastic, even though baseball isn’t my jam. I loved it so much, in fact, that I recommended it for my book club and read it again.

 

“At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended.

 

Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the Harpooners' team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life.

 

As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process they forge new bonds, and help one another find their true paths. Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, The Art of Fielding is an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment - to oneself and to others.”

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