The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

There is a great deal of buzz focused on this book, the first book by Chad Harbach. Reviews have been stellar from the Entertainment Weekly Must List and Time to Rolling Stone and The New Yorker.

Jonathan Franzen says right on the book jacket that first novels this good are very, very rare. So the question is does the book live up to the hype.

I am not a big reader of fiction, other than in my never ending attempt to read all the classics I have missed in the past, so may not be a great expert in the field.

In the book we meet Henry Skimshrander a skinny shortstop for his high school baseball team. Playing in a summer league tournament he impresses an opposing player who plays on a small baseball for a small college named Westish.

Mike Schwartz arranges for Henry to come to Westish and both lives are transformed. Mike is a mentor at heart and Henry has natural gifts that come along once in a generation.

Along the way we meet Henry's gay roommate Owen, a contradiction in cleats. Intelligent, kind, caring and accessible Owen is gay but is also a preternaturally gifted hitter. Soon we are Henry's junior year and here the book takes off.

Henry, through constant training with Mike, has become a strong, physically gifted man child who now hits like a power hitter. Still his fielding is special and he is spoken of as a first round draft choice.

Harbach does a good job making this book not just a baseball book. We meet President Guert Afflenflight who leads Westish College but falls into a dangerous love affair. His prodigal daughter has returned from a failed marriage and becomes entangled with some of our major characters.

An interesting concept as the book does have a major character who is gay and not only gay but actively gay and unaploogetically sexual. I cannot say that this is comfortable but it is interesting in a book that might bring in a more traditional male readership with baseball serving as a backdrop.

By the end of the book the stories of all of the characters are hopelessly entertwined. I would assume that this is the kind of book for which the author will make a significant amount of money for future movie rights.

This is an interesting book. It is a good book. It is not a great book. I liked it, in fact I read the last 200 pages yesterday as I wanted to see how it ended...so maybe it is better than I give it credit for....it certainly is a page turner.

I wonder if my inability to totally embrace the book has to do with the gay subplot. It should not, it is a good book, perhaps by making people ask themselves these questions it is a great book.