Last Days of Summer [Paperback]

Steve Kluger (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 6, 1999

May 15, 1940

Charlie Banks

New York Giants

Polo Grounds, New York

Dear Mr. Banks:

I am a 12–year–old boy and I am dying from malaria. Please hit a home run for me because I don't think I will be around much longer.

Your friend,

Joey Margolis

Dear Kid:

Last week it was the plague. Now it's malaria. What do I look – stupid to you? You're lucky I don't send somebody over there to tap you on the conk. I am enclosing 1 last picture. Do not write to me again.

Chase. Banks

3d Base

Dear Charlie:

Nobody asked for your damn picture. I never even heard of you before. And you can forget about the home run too. The only reason I needed one was because the bullies who keep beating me up somehow thought you were my best friend and the homer was supposed to keep them from slugging me anymore. Thanks for nothing.

Can I go on a road trip with you?

Your arch enemy,

Joey Nargolis

Dear Joey:

"Somehow" they thought I was your best friend? Where did they hear that from? A Nazi spy? J. Herbert Hoover? Franklin Delano Biscuithead? And didn't I tell you not to write to me anymore? Go bug DiMaggio.

Charlie

P.S. And just because there's a spot open for a bat boy this summer doesn't mean your going to get it. Even if we ARE chips off the same block. May 15, 1940

Editorial Reviews

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 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.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (April 6, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380797631
• ISBN-13: 978-0380797639
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (189 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #254,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

STEVE KLUGER shook hands with Lucille Ball when he was 12. He's since lived a few more decades, but nothing much registered after that.

Kluger is a novelist and playwright who grew up during the Sixties with only two heroes: Tom Seaver and Ethel Merman. Few were able to grasp the concept. A veteran of "Casablanca" and a graduate of "The Graduate," he has written extensively on subjects as far-ranging as World War II, rock and roll, and the Titanic, and as close to the heart as baseball and the Boston Red Sox (which frequently have nothing to do with one another). Doubtless due to the fact that he's a card-carrying Baby Boomer whose entire existence was shaped by the lyrics to "Abbey Road," "Workingman's Dead," and "Annie Get Your Gun" (his first spoken words, in fact, were actually stolen from "The Pajama Game"), he's also forged a somewhat singular path as a civil rights advocate, campaigning for a "Save Fenway Park" initiative (which qualifies as a civil right if you're a Red Sox fan), counseling gay teenagers, and--on behalf of Japanese American internment redress--lobbying the Department of the Interior to restore the baseball diamond at the Manzanar National Historic Site. Meanwhile, he's donated half of his spare time to organizations such as Lambda Legal, GLSEN, and Models of Pride, and gives the rest of it to his nephews and nieces: Emily, Noah, Bridgette, Audrey, Elisa, Paloma, Logan, Evan, and Robbie--the nine kids who own his heart. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts--the only city in the world.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Beach Read; Bring the Kleenex June 23, 2000

By Shawna Lanne VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger has to be on of the best books that I have read this year. I am not usually a big fan of baseball books but initially I found the layout of this book to be intriguing. The story is told through a series of letters, notes, report cards and newspaper clippings. Although there is a rich cast of supporting characters the basic story line follows the friendship of a lonely boy named Joseph Margolis a precocious, 95 pound, Jewish weakling, living in Brooklyn during WWII and a fowl mouthed baseball player named Charles Banks. It tells the story of how family can be made anywhere and it really did make me laugh and cry. This was fantastic.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great read, even for the sports-averse August 20, 2008

By Axis

Format:Paperback

I don't like sports. I don't really understand sports. In fact, if sports were my last hope for survival on a wasting planet, I would have to just give up and die with the rest of the athletically-challenged population. So why I picked up a book centered around baseball (in my opinion the second-most boring sport to golf) is beyond me, but it turned out to be a pretty good purchase.

It's not a new concept - fatherless, smart-aleck boy gains begrudging mentor who changes his life forever - but the characters are fresh and relatable. Joey Margolis is a mouthy Jewish kid growing up in Brooklyn. After one too many beatings from the neighborhood bullies, he claims NY Giants' 3rd baseman Charles Banks is his best friend. When he's pressured for proof, Joey writes to Banks to request a home run, starting a flurry of funny, emotionally authentic letters. The letter exchange - peppered by miscellaneous newspaper articles, report cards and psychiatrist's transcripts - continues over a period of seven years, chronicling Joey and Banks' tumultuous but fiercely devoted friendship. The unlikely pair crack jokes, poke fun, threaten, boss, cajole, confide, advise and offer support to one another as the two face extended tours, Bar Mitzvahs, first girlfriends, last girlfriends and absentee fathers.

It is not only Joey's coming of age that is revealed in their notes, but Banks' too. Yeah, there's some baseball talk, but although the sport is what brings the characters together, it's still secondary to the sincere, funny, totally believable relationship between a boy and his reluctant hero.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A book I will remember always...with laughter and tears November 5, 1999

By Avid Reader

Format:Hardcover

I was skeptical about buying this book because of the format....letters..postcards...report cards etc. but something told me to buy it. I did and I can say it was one of the best books that I have ever read and I have read many. I wish Oprah would recommend this book. I am going to try to get my family to read it..I know they will love it if they do. Here's to you Joey, Charlie and the rest of the gang...you did an outstanding job.