The Art of Fielding

The Art of Fielding
by Chad Harbach
Little, Brown, 2011. 512 pgs. Fiction.

Chad Harbach's novel is so accomplished and so well-knit, it seems impossible that it should be his first, and yet . . . . Henry Skrimshander is a shortstop among men--baseball men. He is rescued from the obscurity of Lankton, South Dakota, by Mike Schwartz, captain of the Westish College Harpooners baseball squad because Mike has wished his whole life for a transcendent, observable gift which, not finding in himself, he sees in Henry. At Westish, on the shores of Lake Michigan, Henry blossoms under Mike's coaching and becomes the compass point around which swing Mike, Guert Affenlight, president of the college, Pella Affenlight, his daughter just come home from a bad marriage, and Henry's roommate, Owen. And when Henry's string of errorless innings ends in a spectacular, frightening bullet into the dugout, everyone's life spins out of control and great courage, compassion, and patience are required to return to even keel. The Art of Fielding is filled with Americana and sails on the wings of Moby-Dick, an inland reflection of and homage to the passionate "landlessness" and need to know that informed the doomed voyage of the Pequod. Harbach's novel is filled with memorable characters and a muscular, atmospheric prose. Fair warning: graphic sexual scenes