The Art of Fielding

At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for the big leagues. Then a routine throw goes disastrously off course and the fates of five people are upended.

Henry's life purpose is called into question. Longtime bachelor Guert Affenlight, the college's president, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes swept up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish to start a new life after escaping an ill-fated marriage.

As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets, and help one another to discover their true paths. Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, The Art of Fielding is an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about the bonds of family and friendship and love, and about commitment--to oneself and to others.


Genre: Literary Fiction

"First novels this complete and consuming come along very, very seldom." - Jonathan Franzen