Customer Reviews

The seventh babe: A novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Thank goodness this baby came back into print! I echo what the guys below have said, and add only that if you've read other greats in this genre--The Great American Novel, The Celebrant, Shoeless Joe, Sam's Legacy--this will stand proudly along side them, and should be next.

In my misspent youth there was a confection that kept calling itself a gum and a candy. In fact, it was neither. "The Seventh Babe" is the literary equivalent of that product. It proports to be a baseball novel, yet how many novels on that genre tell us of a Neverland of baseball players, living outside of time and practicing the purest joyful form of the game. It might be a fantasy, yet the elements of out national pastime shape it's direction more then any dragon or demon. Did the baseball strike of a few years ago kill your love for the sport? Here is the remedy! Real yet magical. Jerome Charyn has show us there is no voice quite like his.

This was yet another flashy novel. The author is too concerned with showing how clever he is to be bothered with a plausible plot or believable characters. The central character in particular was totally unbelievable. As much as I wanted to like it, it grew dull and dissonant about half of the way through. The ending was totally absurd ( and not in a nice way).