Last Days of Summer Updated Ed: A Novel

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Review Wonderful....a modern-day Catcher in the Rye. --PORTLAND PRESS HERALD Amazon.com Review In and of itself, the epistolary novel is nothing new; indeed, Ring Lardner wrote You Know Me Al , his classic diamond saga, as a series of letters home from fictional White Sox hurler Jack Keefe more than 80 years ago. With Last Days of Summer , Kluger has virtually reinvented the genre in his picaresque coming-of-age fable of future sportswriter Joey Margolis and his improbable relationship with Giants rookie sensation, Charlie Banks. The place is Brooklyn, the time is the early '40s, and young baseball fanatic Joey needs a hero badly in his life. How that hero becomes Charlie--and ultimately Joey himself--forms the dimensions of the novel's field, but it's the way the game is played that's so remarkable. The story's told not through conventional narrative but by way of Joey's abstract scrapbook: letters, postcards, news clippings, box scores, report cards, matchbook covers, dispatches from FDR, telegrams, even an invitation to Joey's own Bar Mitzvah and the gift list from the affair. Delightful throughout, Summer develops a deeper traction when Charlie goes off to war, then turns poignant in its seemingly preordained aftermath. It is a triumph of style, to be sure, but a triumph of style without loss of substance. --Jeff Silverman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Kirkus Reviews The late Ring Lardner might just be reading now over our shoulders, for Klugers epistolary novel of 1940s Brooklyn baseball is right up his genre. And if he were reading it, Lardner would likely have these admiring words to say about Klugers creation of the character of New York Giants third baseman Charlie Banks, who is a pen pal of the very young Brooklynite Joey Margolis: So you mussle in on my turf, the baseball novel of letters, when you know its my ballpark. But I'm not bitter just because you create a nice guy in Charlie Banks, while Jack Keefe in my novel You Know Me, Al is a braggart and egotist who the reader despairs of. And Chas. Banks loudmouth correspondent Joey Margolis is a little heart-tugger, too. Okay, I pretty much play on one string throughout, while you hit some bigger chords, like war and the Depression and that chowderhead FDR. Well, back in 1915 when my novel was wrote, I didn't have any world wars to wring my readers hearts with. You give a swell sense of Brooklyn in the late thirties and after, and I very much enjoy the cards sent between Joey, better known as The Shadow, and his upstairs neighbor Craig Nakamura. I suppose what stands out is your variety in a story told entirely through letters, postcards, report cards, baseball scorecards, Winchell columns, letters from FDR, and big written sighs of disappointment from Joeys rabbi and his disgusted homeroom teacher, with no author seemingly on hand. And Ill admit its clever how you get the reader to empathize with this jocko 3rd baseman Joey idolizes. And Lardner would have reason to conclude: It hurts, but I got to say you write good and do well in the tears department. I feel honored by having inspired you. The hardest part is over, fella, aside from the reviews. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Publishers Weekly Mixing nostalgia, baseball and a boy's mostly epistolary friendship with a 1940s baseball star, this inventive but sentimental novel consists entirely of letters, fictional newspaper clippings, telegrams, war dispatches, report cards and other documentary fragments. Growing up Jewish in a tough, Italian Brooklyn neighborhood, Joey Margolis is troubled by anti-Semitic neighbors, by Hitler's rising power, by his parents' divorce and by his absent cad of a father. Craving a surrogate dad, Joey strikes up a correspondence with Wisconsin-born New York Giants slugger Charlie Banks. The boy's outrageous fibs, tough-guy posturing and desperate pleas grab the reluctant attention of the superstar, whose racy vernacular guy-talk (peppered with amusing misspellings and misusages) hints at his deepening affection for Joey. Charlie is a politically enlightened proletarian ballplayer with a heart of gold. His liberal views find an echo in Joey, whose best friend, Japanese-American Craig Nakamura, gets shipped off with his family to a wartime internment camp. In a plot that swerves from Joey's Bar Mitzvah to a White House meeting with President Roosevelt to a tearjerking climax, Kluger keeps changing the pace and piles on a slew of period references with a heavy hand. Despite these flaws, this debut novel is at its best a poignant, golden evocation of one boy's lost innocence. Author tour. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Library Journal "April 9, 1940. I have decided to turn to a life of crime." Thus begins a riotous novel-in-letters to and from 12-year-old smart aleck Joey Margolis, a Brooklyn boy in search of a hero. After his parents' divorce, Joey is left to his own devices: sending top-secret notes to his pal Craig Nakamura, dodging bullies, and advising President Roosevelt on foreign policy. Joey's hatred of the Brooklyn Dodgers inspires him to strike up a correspondence with the New York Giants' rookie third baseman, Charlie Banks. Reluctantly, Charlie grows fond of the little scam artist, and the two become friends. But when the war intervenes, Joey must learn what it takes to be a man. This quick read from playwright/novelist Kluger is laugh-out-loud funny, with one-liners and hilarious situations on every page. For all libraries, public and academic.?Christine Perkins, Jackson Cty. Lib. Svcs., Medford, ORCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From the Back Cover Last Days of Summer is the story of Joey Margolis, neighborhood punching bag, growing up goofy and mostly fatherless in Brooklyn in the early 1940s. A boy looking for a hero, Joey decides to latch on to Charlie Banks, the all-star third baseman for the New York Giants. But Joey's chosen champion doesn't exactly welcome the extreme attention of a persistent young fan with an overactive imagination. Then again, this strange, needy kid might be exactly what Banks needs. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. About the Author Steve Kluger has written extensively on subjects as far-ranging as World War II, rock 'n' roll, and the Titanic , and as close to the heart as baseball and the Boston Red Sox. He lives in Santa Monica, California. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Read more