“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” -The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Written forty years afterward, David Halberstam’s warm look back at the Yankees-Red Sox pennant race of 1949 is not for the sabrmetrically inclined. With its unchecked assertions and reliance on anecdotes, there are many parts of Halberstam’s narrative that are unlikely to survive statistical scrutiny. Can it really be true that Joe DiMaggio was never thrown out going from first to third once in his long career? Or that Boston’s Johnny […]
Trailing a Killer
For most of its length, Robert Graysmith’s account of the hunt for Northern California’s most famous serial killer is a rather dry recitation of facts, a play by play of discovered corpses and police investigations. But near the end it turns into something more interesting, as Graysmith starts to involve himself more personally in the investigation, fitting himself into the crevices between the various local, state, and federal investigators, serving as a go-between and discovering new leads on his own. Graysmith found himself in this […]
The Man Who Fixed the World Series
If you’re not familiar with the name Arnold Rothstein, you might be aware of the fictional portrayals which have outlived him. F. Scott Fitzgerald introduced him into The Great Gatsby as Meyer Wolfsheim, the carnivorous gambler who unnerves Nick Carraway. Damon Runyon, on the other hand, humanized Rothstein as the put-upon man about town Nathan Detroit in the stories that would eventually become Guys and Dolls. As those wildly divergent interpretations might lead you to guess, Rothstein was a slippery persona, hard to know and […]
What in the world did I just read?
Is there anything quite as bad as a bad book? I have one big flaw as a book reviewer, I am terrible at reading bad books. When I’m not enjoying a book it is torturous. Such was unfortunately the case with John Irving’s newest novel. Having read about a dozen of Irving’s novels, I’ve long been a fan of his wit and imagination, the intricacy of his plotting, and his ability to keep the reader’s attention. None of those are on display in Avenue of […]
In the Bank
In the Dublin office of a multinational investment bank sits an analyst named Claude. Lured to Ireland from his native Francfe by the chance to make vast sums of money and put some distance between himself and his judgmental father, Claude doesn’t have much of a life outside the bank. He has no friends to speak of, unsatisfying relationships, and no hobbies. That all changes due to a chance encounter with an author named Paul (yes, the author of the book is also named Paul). […]
We’re Not Happy Until You’re Not Happy
Richard Russo is at home among hopeful losers, people who keep going through life even though life keeps knocking the hell out of them. While few of his characters are what you or I would call intelligent, they’re all smart enough to realize that the odds are stacked against them. Russo loves to visit even further indignities on these people and even has the audacity to wring humor out of their struggle. Everybody’s Fool is a sequel to Russo’s 1993 novel Nobody’s Fool, which was […]
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