The first in-depth study of Kinsella’s fiction since 1987, this book offers a unique and updated analysis. Utilizing a variety of approaches and the hermeneutical lenses of race, gender, class, religion, sexuality and post colonialism, this comprehensive text covers the five novels and numerous short stories featuring baseball. Topics include a broad history of both juvenile and adult baseball fiction, an overview of how the genre has grown since the early 1950s, and the various forms of national, community and individual identity that have formed around the sport. The bibliography offers a balance of primary baseball fiction and secondary scholarship, demonstrating the numerous approaches to the game and its literature.

William Steele is a former associate professor of English at Cascade College in Portland, Oregon and former associate professor of English at Oklahoma Christian University. He lives in Tennessee.

William Steele
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 230
Bibliographic Info: bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2012
pISBN: 978-0-7864-6317-6
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8872-8
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments ix

Preface 1

One. The Foundations and Approaches of Baseball Fiction and W.P. Kinsella 7

Two. “Is This Heaven?”: Kinsella’s Idyllic Community 29

Three. “We Are Family!”: The Familial Paradigm 75

Four. Putting the I in Team: Individualism in the Group Construct 106

Five. Playing Short: Transforming Short Stories to Novels 170

Six. We the People: Nationalism Within the Narrative 195

Bibliography 209

Index 215