VETERANS PARK

by Don J. Snyder ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 20, 1987

A baseball pitcher brightens the life of a Maine family in this disappointing first novel about family ties. The action takes place during the 1969 baseball season in Waterboro, Maine, where the Cleveland Indians run a minor-league team. This is not a baseball novel, though the glories of the game are strenuously invoked, as is the significance of the year (Vietnam, Woodstock, the moon landing). There's little doubt that brilliant young pitcher Brad Schaffer will get the call to Cleveland before the season's over, or that, from the moment on Opening Day when he seems to be tipping his cap to her, he'll steal the heart of Bobbi Ann Mullens, daughter of potato farmer Page and mother of 3-year-old Zoey (the father, a shortstop, skipped town the next day). Somebody else who skipped town back then was Page's wife Gwen, in search of a fuller life with her creative writing instructor; or as Bobbi puts it, ""one person [is] poisoned by some broken dream, and then there's hell to pay."" Now it's she who's holding the family together; Page's health is going, and foreclosure is imminent, so to buy time Bobbi makes dirty movies for a SAC colonel, for later distribution in Saigon. Brad too has a Vietnam connection: kid brother Michael is a Marine there, and Brad anguishes over his fate. When he hears about Bobbi's deal, he retrieves the dirty pix by letting the Colonel fix a game; by now he is not only Bobbi's sweetheart, but has assumed responsibility for the family fortunes. He can't save Page, who dies of his unidentified disease, or restore the life-searching Gwen (who makes a brief reappearance), but he does take Bobbi and Zoey to Cleveland when the big call comes. A static novel in which the few plot developments are overshadowed by vapid conversations about Life, and the characters cannot make a move without being boxed in by authorial commentary.

Pub Date: April 20, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Franklin Watts

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION