The Art of Fielding A Novel [Paperback]

At Westish College, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league until a routine throw goes disastrously off course. In the aftermath of his error, the fates of five people are upended. Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life.

As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, The Art of Fieldingis mere baseball fiction the wayMoby Dickis just a fish story (Nicholas Dawidoff). Itis an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment--to oneself and to others.Chad Harbach grew up in Wisconsin and was educated at Harvard and the University of Virginia. He is a cofounder and coeditor ofn+1. Chad Harbach has hit a game-ender withThe Art of Fielding. It's pure fun, easy to read, as if theotherFielding had a hand in it--as ifTom Joneswere about baseball and college life. John Irving An intricate, poised, tingling debut. Harbach's muscular prose breathes new life into the American past-time, recasts the personal worlds that orbit around it, and leaves you longing, lingering, and a baseball convert long after the last page. T?a Obreht, author ofThe Tiger's Wife The Novel of theMonthSeasonYear.... Riveting...[The Art of Fielding] emerges fully formed, a world unto itself. Harbach writes with a tender, egoless virtuosity...There's just something so easy and riveting about the l#