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PLAY FOR A KINGDOM

The madness of war and the passion evoked by baseball complement each other beautifully in this extraordinary first novel, a Civil War saga of a battered Brooklyn company nearing the end of its enlistment. The few survivors of the original company have endured three years of numbing bloodbaths. In the spring of 1864 they march south again, expecting battle but with fewer than three weeks to go as soldiers. Butcher's son Lyman, druggist Louie, grocer Newt, Irish street-thug Tiger, and the others soon come under Rebel fire, an engagement in which Danny, the beloved company sergeant and Lyman's best friend, is killed. With Danny goes the men's respect for authority; lawyer Burridge, their lieutenant, is young and aloof, reading Caesar's Commentaries and dreaming of postwar success. A game of catch while the company is on picket duty, however, turns memorable when a troop from Alabama steps from the woods and challenges Brooklyn to a real game. Led by the brassy Mink, whom Burridge soon realizes is an informant to the South, the Rebels win, and the stage is set for a rematch, during which Mink transmits valuable information. The second game, a Brooklyn victory, leads to three more, undertaken while the battle of Spotsylvania rages around the players. In between are soul-searing assaults and routs, a confusing battle fought through heat and rain, day and night. Each team begins to suspect that its leader is up to more than playing first base. The final meeting between the lines is a hard-fought match, made desperate by the certainty of discovery, after which a great sacrifice is necessary simply to allow the players to leave the field alive. A sensitive, forceful, even breathtaking commingling of play and war, daydream and nightmare, the humane and the bestial, in which the human dimensions of warfare are unforgettably evoked.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-15-100267-3

Page Count: 480

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1997

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WHISTLING PAST THE GRAVEYARD

Young Starla is an endearing character whose spirited observations propel this nicely crafted story.

Crandall (Sleep No More, 2010, etc.) delivers big with a coming-of-age story set in Mississippi in 1963 and narrated by a precocious 9-year-old.

Due in part to tradition, intimidation and Jim Crow laws, segregation is very much ingrained into the Southern lifestyle in 1963. Few white children question these rules, least of all Starla Caudelle, a spunky young girl who lives with her stern, unbending grandmother in Cayuga Springs, Miss., and spends an inordinate amount of time on restriction for her impulsive actions and sassy mouth. Starla’s dad works on an oil rig in the Gulf; her mother abandoned the family to seek fame and fortune in Nashville when Starla was 3. In her youthful innocence, Starla’s convinced that her mother’s now a big singing star, and she dreams of living with her again one day, a day that seems to be coming more quickly than Starla’s anticipated. Convinced that her latest infraction is about to land her in reform school, Starla decides she has no recourse but to run away from home and head to Nashville to find her mom. Ill prepared for the long, hot walk and with little concept of time and distance, Starla becomes weak and dehydrated as she trudges along the hot, dusty road. She gladly accepts water and a ride from Eula, a black woman driving an old truck, and finds, to her surprise, that she’s not Eula’s only passenger. Inside a basket is a young white baby, an infant supposedly abandoned outside a church, whom Eula calls James. Although Eula doesn’t intend to drive all the way to Nashville, when she shows up at her home with the two white children, a confrontation with her husband forces her into becoming a part of Starla’s journey, and it’s this journey that creates strong bonds between the two: They help each other face fears as they each become stronger individuals. Starla learns firsthand about the abuse and scare tactics used to intimidate blacks and the skewed assumption of many whites that blacks are inferior beings. Assisted by a black schoolteacher who shows Eula and Starla unconditional acceptance and kindness, both ultimately learn that love and kinship transcend blood ties and skin color.

Young Starla is an endearing character whose spirited observations propel this nicely crafted story.

Pub Date: July 2, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-4767-0772-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 20, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013

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BEFORE WE WERE YOURS

Wingate sheds light on a shameful true story of child exploitation but is less successful in engaging readers in her...

Avery Stafford, a lawyer, descendant of two prominent Southern families and daughter of a distinguished senator, discovers a family secret that alters her perspective on heritage.

Wingate (Sisters, 2016, etc.) shifts the story in her latest novel between present and past as Avery uncovers evidence that her Grandma Judy was a victim of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society and is related to a woman Avery and her father meet when he visits a nursing home. Although Avery is living at home to help her parents through her father’s cancer treatment, she is also being groomed for her own political career. Readers learn that investigating her family’s past is not part of Avery's scripted existence, but Wingate's attempts to make her seem torn about this are never fully developed, and descriptions of her chemistry with a man she meets as she's searching are also unconvincing. Sections describing the real-life orphanage director Georgia Tann, who stole poor children, mistreated them, and placed them for adoption with wealthy clients—including Joan Crawford and June Allyson—are more vivid, as are passages about Grandma Judy and her siblings. Wingate’s fans and readers who enjoy family dramas will find enough to entertain them, and book clubs may enjoy dissecting the relationship and historical issues in the book.

Wingate sheds light on a shameful true story of child exploitation but is less successful in engaging readers in her fictional characters' lives.

Pub Date: June 6, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-425-28468-1

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017

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