![]() Professional ballplayers from the past, starting with Shoeless Joe Jackson, magically appear as Ray and his wife and daughter watch from the stands. He plows up his cornfield and builds a baseball field. Shoeless Joe tells the story of Ray Kinsella, an unexceptional Iowan farmer guided by voices to do the most un-Iowan things imaginable. And I know how it ends: the subdued euphoria when the son meets his long-dead father, magically transformed into a sturdy 25-year old professional baseball player. The mystical words " If you build it, he will come" arrive early - page 1, third paragraph. ![]() I open the book, ideally outside under a sky the color of cornflowers, and enter Kinsella's literary mirage of fantasy, dreams, and fathers and sons. My copy is a beat-up paperback, thin enough to fit in the back pocket of my jeans. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe from my bookshelf and give it another read. T ime and time again, when the Northeast spring blossoms into vibrant early summer, I pull W.P. I've been trying all my life to find it.” ![]()
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