Bang The Drum Slowly was written in 1956 and is the second in a series of 4 works by Mark Harris which feature Henry Wiggen, a star left-handed pitcher for the New York Mammoths baseball team. I first read it in 1959 when I was 13 years old and I've read it again several times since.
It may not really be "a baseball book". The foreword
is a quote from "The Huge Season" by Wright Morris:
"
.. 'a book can have Chicago in it and not be about Chicago,'
.[He held up another book with Hemmingway's name on the spine], 'There's a prizefighter in it but it's not about a prizefighter';
'Is it about the sun rising?' I asked,
'Goddam if I know what it's about,' he said."
But it's a book about people who are baseball players. The story evolves through their lives and the events of a baseball season. So it's an atmosphere that baseball lovers can relate to.
Bruce Pearson is a young third string catcher with the Mammoths. He's an unsophisticated country boy from a small town......
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Approximate Word Count: 1381
Approximate Pages: 6 (260 words per double-spaced page) |