In Jake’s large family, the kids raise each other, and he’s taught his younger brother Edward how to speak French, use the toilet and understand baseball. In fact, the whole family plays ball pretty much every day, and it’s there that Edward’s already unusual talents truly take form, as he is both a flawless hitter and self-taught knuckleball pitcher. But the reader knows, from the very start, that somewhere in this story Edward dies, and that his eyes (corneas) are transplanted. The story, then, is told in flashback through a lens of nostalgia that occasionally makes Jake’s young voice ring false, in an otherwise engaging story of an unusual family, in which each character is quickly and fully realized, and vivid dialogue helps set each scene. As a story of overcoming grief, it works beautifully, and the quality and brevity of the narrative will appeal to those who read it despite its actual subject. (Fiction. 9-14)
