Last Days of Summer - Softcover

Kluger, Steve

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380797631 ISBN 13: 9780380797639

Publisher: Perennial, 1999

Synopsis

CURRENT PAPERBACK EDITION AVAILABLE AT BARNESANDNOBLE.COM AND HARPERCOLLINS.COM, AND THROUGH ALL RETAIL BOOKSELLERS

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? You′re lucky I don′t send somebody over there to tap you on the conk. I am enclosing 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

About this title

Review:

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 Silverman

From the Back Cover:

The hilarious and heart–warming story about a down–and–out kid who finds inspiration in his favourite baseball hero.

In Brooklyn, 1940, a wisecracking, baseball loving twelve–year–old boy, Joey Margolis, is in desperate need of a hero. His rich father has recently divorced his mother, leaving her all but penniless, and she is forced to move herself and her son to an Italian dominated part of Brooklyn, where he's the only Jew in the area. Constant abuse from other boys in the neighbourhood prompts Joey to send letters to Charlie Banks, an up–and–coming star with the New York Giants, asking for a home run so he can tell everyone that it was for him. Joey uses every trick in the book to get what he wants and the friendship that comes out of their simple correspondence will change them both forever.

This improbable friendship is woven together through letters, postcards, notes, telegrams, newspaper clippings, report cards and ticket stubs, and includes a colourful cast of supporting characters.

o The joys and sorrows growing up will always have an audience and this novel sheds light on all the complexity of those difficult times, with humour and joy.

About this edition

• Publisher: Perennial
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0380797631
• ISBN 13: 9780380797639
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 353