PARENTS BEHAVING BADLY

Suburban Little League fields become a metaphor for adult squabbles in this comic novel.

Ben, the hero of Gummer’s fiction debut, is an unlikely candidate for the role of inspirational coach of a Little League squad in suburban northern California. Unlike his late father, who guided plenty of young athletes in the town of Palace Valley, Ben extracted himself from baseball as a child and instead became a builder of fine furniture in New York City, where he lived with his wife, Jili, and three kids. But after Jili’s mother falls ill, the brood heads back west, and Ben has to confront dad’s legacy and the memory of teenage slights. Much of the book is structured around comic set pieces built around stereotypical characters: the alluring mom who may be trying to put Ben in a compromising position, the hotheaded Little League coach who runs his team like Patton and the star pitcher who’s full of attitude and disdain. Such archetypes would be more tolerable if the novel didn’t shift so erratically between sincerity and broad comedy. Ben has enough intellect and emotional depth to make him more than just a sputtering dolt when he’s left to take the reins of a team, and the back story of Ben and Jili’s efforts to keep their family together in the midst of a big move and a death in the family are well drawn. But though the novel initially seems to aspire to become a seriocomic study of suburbia in the mode of Tom Perrotta, it ultimately collapses into fluffier, family-movie fare. Unlikely, shticky predicaments abound, such as the appearance of a big-name pop star in Ben’s studio, and a subplot involving a shocking confession by a famous ballplayer goes nowhere. Worse, in Palace Valley, people nurse their high-school wounds to an absurd degree, which makes the climatic conflict between Ben and the bullying coach feel forced and cartoonish. The closing chapters hit plenty of feel-good buttons, but they’re too carefully machined to have much of an effect.

Gummer has found rich territory for satire, but he never decides if his take should be wacky or more nuanced.