Imagine that this rookie hits 21 home runs in 160 at-bats, and that he is hitting .488 when his career ends. John Grisham imagines that baseball player in Joe Castle, inevitably Calico Joe, since he comes from Calico Rock, Ark. ... Grisham’s narrator is Paul Tracey, the grown son of Warren Tracey, once a journeyman pitcher for the New York Mets. Paul unfolds much of the tale in flashbacks ... Like W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe, Calico Joe features teams made up of actual ballplayers and fictional teammates ... It would be inaccurate to characterize Calico Joe as a young reader’s book; there is death in it, and also a stroke ... is not a baseball novel, either, or at least not one upon which the reality of the game is permitted to intrude. Baseball serves as background to the preposterously unlikely achievements of one character so heroic that his doom is certain.
John Grisham’s latest novel, Calico Joe, is something of a departure from the Arkansas-born author’s many bestsellers. Here, Grisham returns to a topic—baseball... The story toggles effectively between past and present, as protagonist Paul Tracey recalls the magical summer of 1973, when a rookie named Joe Castle joined the Chicago Cubs and proceeded to set the National League on fire with an astounding and unprecedented display of hitting ... Grisham deftly blends fact and fiction in his baseball accounts from the past, populating his story with real ballplayers from the era and neatly establishing a childlike fascination with statistics and heroic athletic feats as seen through Paul’s eyes as a youngster ... Yet beneath all the baseball lore and Grisham’s obvious affection for the game, Calico Joe offers a sad but real tale about fathers and sons and the difficulties family members can experience when attempting to re-establish severed bonds ...a smart, smooth read.
Yet his newest work, Calico Joe, is as slender as a Dodgers shortstop. Coming in at under 200 pages, it is a breezy little baseball novel that will probably appeal to many men the way Nicholas Sparks' stories appeal to that other sex ...is the first-person account of a fictionalized beaning of a Chicago Cubs prodigy by the name of Joe Castle, by way of Calico Rock, Ark. ... In vintage Grisham fashion — few authors can build to a crescendo the way he does — the story picks up pace ... Not bad, in the sense that I can donate my unblemished copy to the local library in good conscience. Bad in the sense there is no riff or passage worth noting ... Call this one a bloop single for Grisham, a slugger capable of much more. And further evidence that, as a writer, he's probably more Minnie Miñoso than Babe Ruth.
Calico Joe, the new book by John Grisham, is not a great baseball novel. But it, too, uses America's national pastime to search for moral and cultural truths ...is a melodrama. As a ballplayer and as a person, Joe Castle is too good to be true ... Warren Tracey, by contrast, is too bad to be interesting. A drunk and a womanizer... The finale of Calico Joe, a reconciliation of sorts between Warren Tracey and Joe Castle, isn't all that credible.
The forbidden pitch is the key event in John Grisham’s delightfully readable and lively Calico Joe ... In describing Castle’s enthusiasm on the field, Mr. Grisham observes why so many of us love baseball ... Many writers stray from their normal turf to write about baseball. We know Mr. Grisham as the master of the legal thriller. Suffice to say he knows his way around the ballpark as well as he does a courtroom, lingo and all ... With Father’s Day approaching, Calico Joe is a book guaranteed to make Pop happy.
...also a die-hard baseball fan, and Calico Joe is his long-awaited novel reflecting his love for the national pastime ... This relatively short tale about lost opportunities and unfulfilled potential considers, as do many baseball themes, the relationship between fathers and sons, hero worship, and the fickle fates of sports ...is not especially suspenseful; the reader knows practically from the beginning that things will not end well for the rookie ... The author has certainly done his homework, seamlessly incorporating real events and players.
Calico Joe, another sports-themed novel, is a baseball story that should not shock his fans ... This is not your typical John Grisham novel. There are no overarching social issues, pitched physical battles, skullduggery or mysterious deaths. Instead, there is just baseball, a game to enjoy in the moment as well as in history and tradition ... Grisham often turns to family, using redemption and reconciliation as a theme of his writing, whether on death row or, as in this book, on the baseball diamond. It may lack the suspense and fast-paced tumult of his legal thrillers, but its more taciturn style is appropriate for a baseball book.
Only one player in Major League Baseball history has been hit and killed by a pitch, but bean balls — balls thrown near the head — have ended careers. Grisham’s novel imagines the act and its consequences ... The novel unfolds from Paul’s adult perspective, with flashbacks ... Interestingly, the novel’s most fully formed character is Warren, and while the narrative and settings are solid, the story drifts toward a somewhat unsatisfying, perhaps too easy, conclusion ... A reconciliation story, Hallmark style.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
