The Last Days of Summer Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The Last Days of Summer Book

In and of itself, the epistolary novel is nothing new; indeed, Ring Lardner wrote You Know Me Al, his classic diamond saga, as a series of letters home from fictional White Sox hurler Jack Keefe more than 80 years ago. With Last Days of Summer, Kluger has virtually reinvented the genre in his picaresque coming-of-age fable of future sportswriter Joey Margolis and his improbable relationship with Giants rookie sensation, Charlie Banks. The place is Brooklyn, the time is the early '40s, and young baseball fanatic Joey needs a hero badly in his life. How that hero becomes Charlie--and ultimately Joey himself--forms the dimensions of the novel's field, but it's the way the game is played that's so remarkable. The story's told not through conventional narrative but by way of Joey's abstract scrapbook: letters, postcards, news clippings, box scores, report cards, matchbook covers, dispatches from FDR, telegrams, even an invitation to Joey's own Bar Mitzvah and the gift list from the affair. Delightful throughout, Summer develops a deeper traction when Charlie goes off to war, then turns poignant in its seemingly preordained aftermath. It is a triumph of style, to be sure, but a triumph of style without loss of substance. --Jeff SilvermanRead More

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  • Product Description

    May 15, 1940

    Charlie Banks

    New York Giants

    Polo Grounds, New York

    Dear Mr. Banks:

    I am a 12-year-old boy and I am dying from malaria. Please hit a home run for me because I don't think I will be around much longer.

    Your friend,

    Joey Margolis

    Dear Kid:

    Last week it was the plague. Now it's malaria. What do I look - stupid to you? Your lucky I don't send somebody over there to tap you on the conk. I am inclosing 1 last picture. Do not write to me again.

    Chase. Banks

    3d Base

    Dear Charlie:

    Nobody asked for your damn picture. I never even heard of you before. And you can forget about the home run too. The only reason I needed one was because the bullies who keep beating me up somehow thought you were my best friend and the homer was supposed to keep them from slugging me anymore. Thanks for nothing.

    Can I go on a road trip with you?

    Your arch enemy,

    Joey Nargolis

    Dear Joey:

    "Somehow" they thought I was your best friend? Where did they hear that from? A Nazi spy? J. Herbert Hoover? Franklin Delano Biscuithead? And didn't I tell you not to write to me anymore? Go bug DiMaggio.

    Charlie

    P.S. And just because there's a spot open for a bat boy this summer doesn't mean your going to get it. Even if we ARE chips off the same block. May 15, 1940

  • 0380797631
  • 9780380797639
  • Steve Kluger
  • 1 April 1999
  • Harper Perennial
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 368
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