The Art of Fielding

Henry Skrimshander begins Chad Harbach's ambitious and flawed debut novel, The Art of Fielding, as an emblem of perfection. He's an errorless shortstop for the Westish Harpooners, a tiny Division III college baseball team, located along the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan. Mike Schwartz, the catcher and soul of the team, along with Owen Dunne, an openly gay benchwarmer/outfielder who is also Henry's roommate, serve as supporting characters, there to push and guide Henry along his inevitable path toward the major leagues. But after Henry mysteriously makes an erroneous throw that strikes Owen in the face and lands him in the hospital, ending Henry's errorless streak, divergent crises unfold among the characters. Plagued with guilt and anxiety, Henry emotionally unravels as he develops an inability to field even simple groundballs. Owen has a scandalous affair with the highly respected President of Westish College, Guert Affenlight. Guert's daughter, Pella, a high school dropout, who has returned to Westish from San Francisco after a failed marriage, begins dating Mike, who has become depressed over his future life away from the game. Throughout the book, Harbach touches on interesting and important themes, ranging from straight vs. gay male social behavior, to failure vs. success, to feelings of depression and anxiety in the face of an uncertain future. Unfortunately, he ultimately leads his well-wrought characters into predictable and underwhelming conventional resolutions.