A Day at the Ballpark, and Other Stories (Harvard Perspectives in Fiction) [Kindle Edition]

Steve Holt (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Seldom does a thin little first book of fiction provide so much reward while fueling such great anticipation. Steve Holt's short stories illuminate the struggles of men and boys to face and to cope with depression, abandonment, and deceit. With spare language and a sure narrative touch reminiscent of Richard Ford's stories, his navigation of the timeless and sometimes self-destructive preoccupations of his male characters evokes power, pathos, and rich humor. Against the backdrop of these coming-of-age stories, the tantalizing excerpt which Holt shares from his forthcoming novel Realworld.com is a startling change in style and form, one which will keep readers turning the pages and asking for more.

Steve Holt depicts a boy?s first flight from his troubled family in two coming-of-age stories, Outside and Ballpark, relies on a few pages of spare dialogue to tell a haunting tale of marital deceit in Checkup, and provides a tantalizing first look at his forthcoming novel.

From the Publisher

Seldom does a thin little first book of fiction provide so much reward while fueling such great anticipation. Steve Holt's short stories illuminate the struggles of men and boys to face and to cope with depression, abandonment, and deceit. With spare language and a sure narrative touch reminiscent of Richard Ford's stories, his navigation of the timeless and sometimes self-destructive preoccupations of his male characters evokes power, pathos, and rich humor. Against the backdrop of these coming-of-age stories, the tantalizing excerpt which Holt shares from his forthcoming novel Realworld.com is a startling change in style and form, one which will keep readers turning the pages and asking for more!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 183 KB
• Publisher: Harvard Perspectives Press; 1st Kindle Original edition (December 16, 2007)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0011DOMV8
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anxiously awaiting Realworld.com !!!, October 9, 2000

By 

ace "[e-mail]" (Belmont, Morocco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Day at the Ballpark, and Other Stories (Paperback Original; 1st edition) (Paperback)

I loved this book !!! Don't be fooled by its small size..it's filled with real life in all its pain, mystery, pathos and laughter. If the excerpt of Realworl.com is but a tease, bring it on, Steve !!!! I will try to wait patiently for the full text...

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Prelude to things to come -- I hope!, October 10, 2001

By 

Genevieve Kazdin "dunes_studio" (Pocasset, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Day at the Ballpark, and Other Stories (Paperback Original; 1st edition) (Paperback)

It is not often that a woman sees into the heart and mind of a young man. This is one of the gifts Holt brings us in this lovely little volume of stories. Young Jimmy, in 'A Day at the Ballpark', comes to grips with the adult failings of his parents, and his uncle JD. He also muses about his sister - in spare, unemotional language, Jimmy details the shocking and sad fate of Kate.

'Checkup' is more a prose poem than anything else. As such, it cuts to the core and with no wasted words shows us an unhappy relationship -- lies, deception, and despair. Three pages -- a moment in time that promises the years ahead for this couple.

I live on Cape Cod. I have seen Jimmy. I've seen those guys sleeping on the beaches. And Holt explains why they are there-- or at least why Jimmy is there. 'Outside' puts the reader into the head of this young man. It's not a comfortable place to be.

But the surprise is in the except from Holt's novel 'Realworld.com'. Peopled with movers and shakers of the online world, with high-tech geniuses, and assorted brainy types, the novel also introduces us to Willow, a young teen-age girl. Well, now. Willow comes alive on these pages. She is torn between independence and reliance on her mother. She is ambivalent about life and her inability to make decisions for her own future -- she is still young enough to do as her mother wishes. Willow is not a main character to this story, but she is so well drawn I wish she were. As she discovers her talent for basketball, and excels at the sport, we wonder about her parentage --- but I get ahead of things here. Holt stops the excerpt: a king-sized cliffhanger if I ever saw one! And there are no promises of when we get to read the rest of 'Realworld.com'!

There's more to look forward to in this novel than Willow. But this character was a surprise. Tucked in among some larger-than-life characters (well, I think I can guess upon whom they are modeled!) is this one young girl who shines and shows us without question the perception and sensitivity of Steve Holt. I'd like to see more of what Holt has to offer and am waiting for the rest of this book!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Guy Fiction - Loss of Innocence, February 8, 2001

By 

Zeke Cantor (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Day at the Ballpark, and Other Stories (Paperback Original; 1st edition) (Paperback)

I heard about this from a friend in Chicago and I decided to give it a read. Kind of an amazing book. The narrator in the short stories seems to be the same guy, at different stages in the process of a difficult life, growing up on Cape Cod. The voice is very simple yet it registers a pretty powerful range of emotion, whether the scene is a baseball game, an exchange between father and son, an incident that occurs to the kid while hitchhiking, or whatever. You can feel the kid trying to hold onto important things in his life as he is losing his innocence and things are kind of breaking down all around him. Great stuff, and you don't often get it in guy fiction. I haven't seen other stuff by Holt, but he knows his baseball, among other things. Then there's a long excerpt from a novel, called Realworld.com, and that is totally different, almost slick in a way similar to Turn of the Century (Kurt Andersen), but with hilarious caricatures of day traders, a pretty scary Bill Gates-like character, etc. and a very likeable main character named Overtime Overton, who's a washed up pro basketball player. I recommend it, although I'll be kind of ticked off if I never get to read the rest of the novel.