Last Days of Summer
by Steve Kluger
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Book Summary Information
Author: Steve KlugerEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-05-24
ISBN: 0060821442
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Avon
Book Reviews of Last Days of Summer
Book Review: Not Enough Words for "Wonderful"
Summary: 5 Stars
It was, well, wonderful! A beautiful story set in the 1940's about an unlikely relationship between a 13-year-old precocious boy and a cocky famous baseball player. The storytelling is unconventional in that the book is comprised of a series of letters, report cards, transcriptions of counseling sessions, secret note exchanges, and newspaper clippings. At first I was unsure of how well I would like this style, but I was soon completely engulfed and was turning from page to page without noticing the time.
Some readers may not like the "choppiness" of the writing because many things will have to be inferred between letters, but it makes the story so personal to hear it directly from the characters. Obviously, there are no physical descriptions of the characters (because that wouldn't be included in actual letters) or an omniscient narrator telling the reader what the characters are thinking. But the characters are still able to develop and change as their experiences change. The author does a fantastic job of documenting this personal growth through the letters they write to each other.
Sure, the ending may be predictable, but it's about the journey, not the destination. You'll laugh at loud and shed some tears. You'll become attached to the characters, and if you're like me, you'll breeze through the book because there aren't any defined chapters, and the letters are all less than two pages, so you'll lose track of time. I was fortunate enough to find this gem in the bargain bin of a local bookstore. I wish had bought more so I could give them away as gifts. This is certainly my new favorite book. (A title I don't give away lightly.)
Summary of Last Days of Summer
Through letters, notes, report cards, matchbook covers, and telegrams, a novel set in the 1940s follows the sometimes underhanded efforts of Joey Margolis, a fatherless twelve year old, to persuade New York Giants third baseman Charlie Banks to be his role model. Reprint.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
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