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#5 Platform: Home, Away
Sep. 6th, 2010 09:10 pmA realistic, but optimistic tale of baseball and parenthood? The realistic makes it different.
Book #27: Home, Away
Author: Jeff Gillenkirk
Provenance: Received from Librarything's Early Reviewers
There's no shortage of stories about fathers and sons and baseball out there. It's one of the classic American stories, and I read some when I was growing up, and then still more later as I grew older. There's even a pretty well known book by Donald Hall called Fathers Playing Catch with Sons. So when you want to write a book about the parental relationship through the eyes of baseball, you better have a pretty good hook.
Jeff Gillenkirk does come up with something quite interesting: a father, Jason Thibodeaux, so devoted to his son Rafe that, at the outset, he's given up his promising baseball career to tend to his boy, taking the year off from Stanford. The book then progresses through the years, focusing on the conflicts between Jason and his career, Jason and his ex-wife, Jason and Rafe, and Jason and the way that society views fathers. In giving up that much, and in trying to keep control of his son, Jason gets some decidedly mixed reactions, and that's interestingly handled.
Jason's journey, from Stanford to the big leagues to Mexico and around, and later on, Rafe's troubles with and without his father, would be pretty engrossing on their own, without the baseball added in, but some of that does provide good color as well. It never takes over the story, the baseball, but it's always there, the demands it places on the main characters, and the culture and characters and rewards it brings along. Gillenkirk is an advocate of the importance of fathers in parenting, and so perhaps it's natural that side is stronger in the story than the sports component; those who don't like baseball shouldn't be thrown off too much by the story.
As good as the story can be, and as interesting Gillenkirk's take, the book does have some pretty noticeable flaws, as well. The writing is hard to follow at points for who's talking, and the style can be choppy, as well. The characters beyond Jason and Rafe are generally one-dimensional; the ex-wife character is maybe 1.5 dimensional, and that's the limit. The pacing felt off; overall; sections felt rushed, particularly towards the end, so there's not time for some of the later plot developments to really feel fully impactful. And, yes, the ending... I don't suppose it was bad, per se, but it was very pat, just the situation of it, and I didn't much care for it.
I don't want to sound too harsh: the story overall is good, and it's a different take on the father/son story here. I'd consider giving it to my dad as a father's day present or such, and for people who like seeing a good bonding story, but I wouldn't give it really wide distribution. That would call for a book with a bit more of a change-up at the end, rather than the fastball you're expecting.
Next up: Unseen Academicals. I suppose the sports theme continues.
Book #27: Home, Away
Author: Jeff Gillenkirk
Provenance: Received from Librarything's Early Reviewers
There's no shortage of stories about fathers and sons and baseball out there. It's one of the classic American stories, and I read some when I was growing up, and then still more later as I grew older. There's even a pretty well known book by Donald Hall called Fathers Playing Catch with Sons. So when you want to write a book about the parental relationship through the eyes of baseball, you better have a pretty good hook.
Jeff Gillenkirk does come up with something quite interesting: a father, Jason Thibodeaux, so devoted to his son Rafe that, at the outset, he's given up his promising baseball career to tend to his boy, taking the year off from Stanford. The book then progresses through the years, focusing on the conflicts between Jason and his career, Jason and his ex-wife, Jason and Rafe, and Jason and the way that society views fathers. In giving up that much, and in trying to keep control of his son, Jason gets some decidedly mixed reactions, and that's interestingly handled.
Jason's journey, from Stanford to the big leagues to Mexico and around, and later on, Rafe's troubles with and without his father, would be pretty engrossing on their own, without the baseball added in, but some of that does provide good color as well. It never takes over the story, the baseball, but it's always there, the demands it places on the main characters, and the culture and characters and rewards it brings along. Gillenkirk is an advocate of the importance of fathers in parenting, and so perhaps it's natural that side is stronger in the story than the sports component; those who don't like baseball shouldn't be thrown off too much by the story.
As good as the story can be, and as interesting Gillenkirk's take, the book does have some pretty noticeable flaws, as well. The writing is hard to follow at points for who's talking, and the style can be choppy, as well. The characters beyond Jason and Rafe are generally one-dimensional; the ex-wife character is maybe 1.5 dimensional, and that's the limit. The pacing felt off; overall; sections felt rushed, particularly towards the end, so there's not time for some of the later plot developments to really feel fully impactful. And, yes, the ending... I don't suppose it was bad, per se, but it was very pat, just the situation of it, and I didn't much care for it.
I don't want to sound too harsh: the story overall is good, and it's a different take on the father/son story here. I'd consider giving it to my dad as a father's day present or such, and for people who like seeing a good bonding story, but I wouldn't give it really wide distribution. That would call for a book with a bit more of a change-up at the end, rather than the fastball you're expecting.
Next up: Unseen Academicals. I suppose the sports theme continues.
