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A review by skyring
Calico Joe by John Grisham
5.0
In many ways, baseball is the perfect game. Unlike the open-ended contest between bowler and batsman in cricket, baseball limits the interactions and the tension mounts. Pitcher and batter are playing a game of wits and strategy, something like tic-tac-toe in the simplicity of the formula but with the element of chance and skill. A tiny angle on the bat can mean the difference between a grand slam home run and a foul ball. A keen eye can pick up a weakness in the opponent - or in the fielders.
John Grisham, turning from courtroom dramas to sports, reveals a hidden talent, a blinding and unexpected one, as if you open the oaken door of the courtroom, the stadium lights glare onto the packed bleachers and a ball whizzes past your ear. Here he pits the opposing teams against each other every bit as deftly as prosecution and defence. More than that, he brings the reader into the history, the culture, the tactics of the game, and perhaps best of all, opens up the characters and their motivations.
It's not all cut and dried. A quarrel with a parent, an awkward word, a foolish pride or a kindly gesture steers the course of the story every bit as much as the rules of evidence - or baseball.
Grisham tells this story with the skill of a master. He holds back on some details in this dual childhood/adult tale as the parallel worlds of 1973 and 2011 race along. Just what did happen in the backyard and why is it so crucial? The adult narrator knows, but he's not going to tell us, even after the appropriate place in the childhood retelling has passed. We know it's there, we know that both boy and man are aware of it, but Grisham holds back until the best place in his story.
And then it all slots into place and the jigsaw is complete apart from a few missing pieces which we fill in without drama.
Perhaps what I like best is not the calculated pacing of the plot, the keen characterisation or even the details of baseball. It is the unconscious presentation of America. It just flows out of the page, and we Australians (or Irish or French or Argentinians) are there, immersed in Americana. It's like a holiday in the States, with the smell of hotdogs and mustard lingering over the grandstand, the big ugly cars, the plastic sincerity of preachers and the crack of the bat against ball. Hear the crowd roar!
John Grisham, turning from courtroom dramas to sports, reveals a hidden talent, a blinding and unexpected one, as if you open the oaken door of the courtroom, the stadium lights glare onto the packed bleachers and a ball whizzes past your ear. Here he pits the opposing teams against each other every bit as deftly as prosecution and defence. More than that, he brings the reader into the history, the culture, the tactics of the game, and perhaps best of all, opens up the characters and their motivations.
It's not all cut and dried. A quarrel with a parent, an awkward word, a foolish pride or a kindly gesture steers the course of the story every bit as much as the rules of evidence - or baseball.
Grisham tells this story with the skill of a master. He holds back on some details in this dual childhood/adult tale as the parallel worlds of 1973 and 2011 race along. Just what did happen in the backyard and why is it so crucial? The adult narrator knows, but he's not going to tell us, even after the appropriate place in the childhood retelling has passed. We know it's there, we know that both boy and man are aware of it, but Grisham holds back until the best place in his story.
And then it all slots into place and the jigsaw is complete apart from a few missing pieces which we fill in without drama.
Perhaps what I like best is not the calculated pacing of the plot, the keen characterisation or even the details of baseball. It is the unconscious presentation of America. It just flows out of the page, and we Australians (or Irish or French or Argentinians) are there, immersed in Americana. It's like a holiday in the States, with the smell of hotdogs and mustard lingering over the grandstand, the big ugly cars, the plastic sincerity of preachers and the crack of the bat against ball. Hear the crowd roar!