The Man with Two Arms
A Novel
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“Undoubtedly modern America’s finest literary tribute to the baseball since Bernard Malamud’s novel The Natural” (Chicago Tribune).
Henry Granville, a baseball fanatic and high school teacher, spends hours in the basement with his young son Danny, introducing him to balls of all shapes and sizes. He even turns the basement into an indoor stadium.
Danny quickly distinguishes himself from his peers, most conspicuously by his ability to throw perfectly with either arm—a feat virtually unheard of in baseball. But he also possesses a visionary gift that not even he understands. Danny becomes a superior athlete, skyrocketing through the minor leagues and into the majors where he experiences immediate success, breaking records held for decades. When a journalist, a former student of Henry’s and hungry for a national breakout story, exaggerates the teacher’s obsession and exposes him to the world as a monster, all hell breaks loose and the pressures of media and celebrity threaten to disrupt the world that Henry and Danny have created.
A baseball novel—and much more—The Man with Two Arms is a story of the ways in which we protect, betray, forgive, love, and shape each other as we attempt to find our way through life.
“Magical realism meets baseball in [this] debut novel . . . [A] Roy Hobbs-like narrative.” —Chicago Magazine
“Sings with joy and tragedy . . . An amazing debut, as a lyrical paean to the national pastime and as a touching exploration of the life of a boy becoming a man both blessed and burdened with a unique and extraordinary talent.” —Flagpole
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This debut novel from Lombardo (The Logic of a Rose) follows ably in the cleat-prints of W.P. Kinsella and Bernard Malamud, chronicling the life of a talented Chicago pitcher. In their middle-class Chicago suburb of the mid-1980s, baseball nut Henry Granville and his wife, Lori, face marital discord regarding Henry's immediate, insistent campaign to commit their baby son Danny to a life in baseball. When Henry discovers his son's natural ambidexterity, visions of raising a superstar "switch pitcher" (an almost unheard-of athletic skill) kick his obsession into overdrive. One rocky boyhood later, Danny signs with the Cubs and finds instant fame ("Danny can throw like Tom Seaver with one arm and Sandy Koufax with the other") as well as a bit of infamy; he's a "freak" in the eyes of opponents. Meanwhile, Danny falls in love with an art instructor and nurtures another rare talent: clairvoyance. Fans of sports fiction should find this an enjoyable trip to the mound, with just enough old-fashioned Americana magic to keep them guessing.