A good read for any baseball fan and a fitting tribute to the recently triumphant Cubs.
Kmitta’s debut novel tells a story about Chicago baseball fans in two different eras.
The story starts in 1867 with a mysterious, forceful figure named William Hulbert who’s committed to two things: Chicago and “base ball”—two words, as it was then spelled. He’s determined to get this new game taken seriously as a professional sport. (In real life, Hulbert went on to found the National League in 1876.) Meanwhile, readers are treated to cameos by historical figures such as beer magnate Adolphus Busch and future president Ulysses S. Grant. The narrative then shifts to 1967—and from third-person narration to first-person—to focus on a young fan named Scott Banks at his first Chicago Cubs baseball game. Scott remains an avid Cubs fan as the years go by, even after his job forces him to move to St. Louis—enemy territory, as it were. Later, he has a wife and three grown kids, all Cardinals fans, and he wins a contest to face off as a batter against genuine Cardinals pitchers. Scott showed some promise as a high school baseball player, but life and injuries intervened; now, he can get a tiny taste of “The Show,” even if he has to do it in Busch Stadium, not Wrigley Field. The story toggles between Hulbert’s and Scott’s stories, and the run-up to Scott’s big showdown, in particular, is handled well. Part of the fun for readers will be in learning early “base ball” lore and terminology: the catcher, for example, was called the “behinder,” umpires were “arbiters,” and fans were “cranks.” Kmitta is a genuine baseball fanatic; indeed, Scott appears to be a thinly disguised version of the author, who’s active in a vintage baseball league. He’s also a capable writer, never skimping on detail and keeping the story moving at a fairly brisk pace while also giving readers a present-day protagonist that they’ll sympathize with and root for.
A good read for any baseball fan and a fitting tribute to the recently triumphant Cubs.Pub Date: May 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4917-6095-6
Page Count: 312
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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