I’m a writer and a lifelong baseball fan with a weakness for baseball-ish fiction. For a lot of folks, this means reading the usual suspects: Kinsella, Malamud, Coover, Roth, DeLillo... But I especially enjoy stumbling across under-the-radar novels that can’t help but surprise in their own ways. I enjoy this so much, in fact, I went out and wrote one of my own – inspired by the life and career of an all-but-forgotten ballplayer from the 1880s named Fred “Sure Shot” Dunlap, one of the greats of the game in his time. In the stuff of his life there was the stuff of meaning and moment… of the sort you’ll find in the books I’m recommending here.
I wrote...
A Single Happened Thing
By
Daniel Paisner
What is my book about?
A father, a daughter, a forgotten icon of 1880s baseball... these are the players in Daniel Paisner's haunting novel about the specter of love and legacy that fills our days and colors our relationships. A Single Thing Happenedtells the story of a going-nowhere book publicist, David Felb, who encounters the ghost of a former ballplayer - Fred "Sure Shot" Dunlap, a once-legendary second baseman whose career has lapsed into obscurity. Soon, the spirit of Dunlap begins to unsettle Felb's relationships and cloud his already murky worldview. As his tether on reason appears to unravel, the protagonist's daughter Iona - a colorful teenager with a penchant for DayGlo-dyed hair, body piercings, and our national pastime - joins Felb in his quest to be proven sane and whole. In the end, it is Iona's emergence as a confident, self-reliant young woman that sets Felb right, even as his marriage unravels on the back of this ghostly apparition.
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The Books I Picked & Why
Summerland
By
Michael Chabon
Why this book?
It feels a little misleading to suggest that a Michael Chabon book is widely underread, but this one almost never comes up when I talk to writers and readers about their favorite baseball novels. Perhaps it’s because Chabon, one of our most celebrated writers, imagined Summerland as a book for young readers, and while it is surely that, it is also surely so much more. It’s strange and wonderful and oh so beautifully written. The author’s prose jumps off every page with an exit velocity that demands your attention. Read it with your kids or your grandkids. Read it on your own. Just, read it.
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The Resisters
By
Gish Jen
Why this book?
I was looking forward to this one and read it as soon as it came out, early on in these pandemic times. It’s not really a baseball novel, except it kinda, sorta is. Mostly, it’s a subversive look at a dystopian future that turns on the redemptive power of baseball. It made a lot of noise on publication, but the focus of most of the reviews leaned away from the baseball bits and into the dystopian bits. Gish Jen writes gloriously about the game – but also about life and love, longing and belonging, hope and hopelessness.
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Suder
By
Percival L. Everett
Why this book?
Any novel that shines a light on the adventures and misadventures of a fictional Seattle Mariners third baseman with a pet elephant that answers to the name Renoir is worthy of your time and attention. I’m late to the party on this but so glad I sparked to it.
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The Dixie Association
By
Donald Hays
Why this book?
I was working as a flak at Simon & Schuster when this book came out, and I helped to write the flap copy, so it feels to me like I had a hand in it. As an aspiring writer, I remember admiring the hell out of this novel. On a recent re-read, as a grizzled, wizened veteran writer, I still do. Hays gives us a collection of memorable characters, and a wild, vagabonding tale that offers a glimpse at minor league life in the deep South. There’s humor and heartache and all that good stuff.
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Bucky F*cking Dent
By
David Duchovny
Why this book?
I loved this book the moment I saw the title. And the cover! I loved it even more when I noticed it shared a publication date with my own baseball novel back in 2016, so it feels to me like we’re related. The title and cover alone should earn this one a spot on your shelf, but there’s tasty goodness inside. Duchovny’s love of the game is apparent – but so too is his Ivy League education. He writes like a lifelong reader, with a keen eye for baseball and its denizens and an ear for poetry. He’s funny af, too.
