JOY / / It's 1932 and a new star has risen from the east, arching toward Los Angeles. / / A man, woman and child set off by rail from Chicago to follow the star. / / Along the way they'll meet figures from the pantheon of the American imagination -- figures who make us the people we are today: Woody Guthrie, Clark Kent, Al Capone, Babe Ruth, the Wizard of Oz and the ghost of Abner Doubleday. / / And when the three find their fates, the stars that guide us all will be forever changed. / / / 'An absolutely joyful novel . . . wonderfully funny and uplifting. A mixture of fact and fantasy, fiction and frolic, this novel skips, jumps, and ultimately flies.' / -- West Coast Review of Books / / 'A fast-moving and entertaining romp across country and through time.' / -- Los Angeles Times / / 'McAlpine is a gifted stylist, with clean, clear and muscular prose.' / -- Publisher's Weekly / / 'A quirky, quixotic tale . . . Unusual and entertaining.' / -- Library Journal
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Set in the 1930s, this gracefully written first novel opens with the World Series at Wrigley Field in Chicago. On a rooftop across the street, 14-year-old orphan Buddy Easter watches the game with his invisible friend, Abner Doubleday. Outside the ballpark a dime-a-dance girl named Alice de Minuette tries to get a message to Babe Ruth, with whom she once had an affair, while being chased by Al Capone's men because she spurned his advances and unknowingly grabbed an envelope containing the gangster's business secrets. On the other side of town, Loren Woodville, a brilliant scientist with a controversial theory about Martians, prepares to jump off a bridge. At this moment, the Babe "calls" his famous home run and launches the ball literally into the stratosphere. It clears the stadium, the neighboring apartment buildings, the city itself. Buddy watches the ball and determines to follow it across the country so he can catch it when it lands. Loren, dangling upside down off the bridge, sees the magical baseball and is convinced that he's finally spotted an alien spacecraft. McAlpine is a gifted stylist, with clean, clear and muscular prose. Unfortunately its effectiveness is reduced because the story line--while striving for the "magical"--settles sometimes for the sentimental or the cute. Still, this baseball fantasy is a strong debut, and leaves us hoping that the author's vision will eventually rise to the level of his impressive literary talent.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
What could Babe Ruth, an orphan named Buddy, an attractive ex-waitress, Al Capone, a scientist obsessed with Martians, Clark Kent, a guitar-playing hobo named Woody, a balloonist extraordinaire, and the ghost of Abner Doubleday possibly have in common? They have all found their way into the pages of this quirky, quixotic tale that begins in Chicago's Wrigley Field and ends in Long Beach, California, with a number of interesting side stops and surprisingly few loose ends. Not a conventional baseball novel, but an archetypal medieval quest 1930s style, complete with troubador and wizard. Unusual and entertaining.
- Judith A. Gifford, Salve Regina Coll. Lib., Newport, R.I.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Judith A. Gifford, Salve Regina Coll. Lib., Newport, R.I.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An American Pie,
By A Customer
This review is from: Joy in Mudville: 2 (Hardcover)
Joy in Mudville is a quest for the dream, a creation of delight with all the magic ingredients that make it one of the most tasty dishes of American Pie ever baked in a modern literary oven. Where else can the archetypel characters of Babe Ruth, Woody Guthrie, Al Capone, Superman, and the Wizard of Oz cross paths to help define the honest jopes of men, women, and childhood innocence. If Gabriel Garcia Marquez were an American, this is the novel he would have written. Read it and you will be educated and entertained. You will know more about the country, it's mythology, and the nature of your own wonder. Gordon McAlpine is truly one of the most compassionate of America's new authors, and one of whom, I am sure, you will here a great deal more.
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