Pafko at the Wall: A Novella (Hardcover)

by Don DeLillo (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"There's a long drive.
It's gonna be.
I believe.
The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant."

-- Russ Hodges, October 3, 1951

On the fiftieth anniversary of "The Shot Heard Round the World," Don DeLillo reassembles in fiction the larger-than-life characters who on October 3, 1951, witnessed Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Jackie Gleason is razzing Toots Shor in Leo Durocher's box seats; J. Edgar Hoover, basking in Sinatra's celebrity, is about to be told that the Russians have tested an atomic bomb; and Russ Hodges, raw-throated and excitable, announces the game -- the Giants and the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds in New York. DeLillo's transcendent account of one of the iconic events of the twentieth century is a masterpiece of American sportswriting.

About the Author
Don DeLillo, the author of twelve novels and two plays, has won many honors in this country and abroad, including the National Book Award, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, the Jerusalem Prize for his complete body of work and the Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for his novel Underworld. His most recent novel is The Body Artist.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; First printing edition (October 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743230000
• ISBN-13: 978-0743230001
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #363,879 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Longing on a large scale., October 17, 2001

By	Dez "matthewdesmond" (Toledo, OH United States) - See all my reviews

Yes, if you've read Underworld then there's no need to buy this book, and yes, it's a cynical ploy to release this already published and republished story as a new hardcover. I'd be irritated with Delillo if this weren't one of the most magnificent things I've ever read. I also enjoy the cover. I'd never seen that photograph before and hence never understood the story's odd original title. Why Pafko, mentioned in the text only once or twice? But there he is, forever, watching the ball sail over his head and into Cotter Martin's hand. Like Nick Shay said, the ball is about losing, not winning. Buy this book and give it to someone who'd never pick up an 800 page book. Give it to a baseball fan.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars contractual sniping aside..., October 17, 2001

By	potchytuckis (in the shadow of the WTC towers) - See all my reviews

...the fact that this great work has been published previously (first in Harper's back in 1992, then in altered form as the Prologue to Underworld in 1997) does not alter the fact that it is great. Pristine. Phrase-perfect. Sustained in tone. It speaks in your voice, American. Buy it for your old man who loves baseball but has no patience for this contemporary-lit mishegoss. Buy it for that girl you're trying to impress who loved White Noise but can't stand baseball. Buy it for the 12-year-old nephew you're trying to turn on to the glories of great fiction. Buy it. Oh yeah, and if you haven't actually read it yourself, do that too. It's the 50th anniversary of Bobby Thompson's homer, for chrissake.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is how to write a book, December 26, 2003

By	"fugettit" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Who cares about Underworld? I didn't go near it. Separating this classic from that tome was the best marketing move anyone's ever done. This book should be in the public domain anyway. Imagine taking a baseball game, exploding it into one of the world's greatest historical events as seen from various characters' points of view, and at the same time encapsulating the dawning of a new moment in world history. Every sentence is sharp and detailed, anticipating the next. And then when Thomson hits the home run, Delillo freeze frames each second like you're in a car crash, making sure you're aware of everything that's going on. It's one of the best books ever written.