Book Review by Lily Yengle ’13

Spring has sprung, and now is the perfect weather to go to a baseball field and hit some fly balls and grand slams and other baseball terms. Or, if you’re like me, you can sit outside and read a book about baseball instead.

The Art of Fielding is Chad Harbach’s masterful premier novel about a baseball team at a small liberal arts college, the players that make them a team and the trauma that tears them apart. The story, and the baseball team, revolves around Henry Skirmshander, a skinny, unassuming kid who fields shortstop with the grace of a dancer and the reflexes of a cat. Scouted and personally trained by fellow student Mike Schwartz, Henry arrives at Westish College and soon becomes something rare on their baseball team—a prospect.

Henry is about to break a record for games without errors when suddenly he slips, and messes up in a big way, and the fallout from that play sends the lives of the characters spiraling. Henry struggles to not lose his confidence and the favor of big league scouts. Mike, always disciplined and driven, begins to realize his hard work has not paid off, for Henry or himself. And Henry’s roommate Owen, the casualty of Henry’s bad throw, recovers amidst the attentions of a rather dangerous lover.  The players and their fans weather the turbulent season and their even more tumultuous love lives with a relatable anxiety towards the future and an incontrovertible love of the game. I definitely recommend this for a summer read—it’s got everything you could want. Except maybe some crackerjacks.