The Last Days of Summer

Steve Kluger, Last Days of Summer (1998)

This touching novel is set in New York in the early 1940s and tells of the friendship between Joey, a brilliant Jewish kid who is picked on because of his religion, and Charlie, the not-so-dumb third baseman for the New York Giants. I found the ending to be predictable, even inevitable, but it still brought tears to my eyes.

One interesting feature of the novel is that Kluger does not rely upon normal narrative to tell his story, but instead relates it using letters, telegrams and newspaper articles. The book reads very quickly; I devoured its 353 pages in one sitting.

Of these 353, I particularly liked page seven, because it contained the following cool words:

rotogravure - a type of printing system using a rotary press, or something printed with such a system

hartebeest - a type of large antelope native to Africa

hop-o’-my-thumb - the name of a little boy in a folk tale

The language is rough at times, but still the story is beautiful. I recommend it to anyone who believes in baseball, or heroes.