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The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness, and Baseball
Growing up in a doomed hometown with a missing father and a single mother, Nicholas Dawidoff listened to baseball every night on his bedside radio, the professional ballplayers gradually becoming the men in his life. A portrait of a childhood shaped by a stoical, enterprising mother, a disturbed, dangerous father, the private world of baseball, and the awkwardness of first...more
Hardcover, 288 pages
Published
May 6th 2008
by Pantheon
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There are only a few books I consider perfect: Tuck Everlasting, Book Thief, To Kill a Mockingbird, Search for Delicious...I'm not even sure I can describe perfect but I know it when I find it.
This is a perfect book.
It is a series of rememberings, both from the perspective of the age he was and from now. Woven in and out of the rememberings are baseball and his father. He never runs out of steam and the ending isn't happy because there isn't an ending.
This wa...more
This is a perfect book.
It is a series of rememberings, both from the perspective of the age he was and from now. Woven in and out of the rememberings are baseball and his father. He never runs out of steam and the ending isn't happy because there isn't an ending.
This wa...more
I thoroughly enjoy well-written and perceptive memoirs especially when they have painful and hopeful revelations in equal measure. This book is a highly satisfying memoir that contains many wonderfully descriptive passages that capture the angst of growing up and feeling like an outsider. The author's life is colored by his father's mental illness, his mother's austere strength and determination and his love of baseball. The fact that he grew up in New Haven and graduated from Hopkins added ...more
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My daughter Ryan says reading this book will help understand her, so I approached it a bit sideways, looking for what was Ryan more than just reading a book. I see why she was struck by the book. There is a lot of commonality – reading aloud, the Hardy Boys books, being poor and having a somewhat over-organized mother (the food shopping and freezing description was eerie), no TV, obsession with candy, even the scary parallels with the kidnapping of Jennifer and the Seattle kidnapping of Heidi...more
The prose in this book is gorgeous and evocative as Dawidoff describes his childhood of divorced parents, one of whom was mentally unbalanced. Just a wonderful memoir.
Beautifully written memoir by the author of one of my favorite baseball books, The Catcher was a Spy.
I finally finished this gift from my husband. I love baseball and memoirs, so it was a great idea. Ultimately, it was depressing and added to my already-maudlin mood, so I'm not sure I can recommend it. If you are looking for a fabulous baseball memoir, check out Wait Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin, another thoughtful gift from my husband.
The latest of my memoirs with baseball as the backdrop. I love how this is written, on the book jacket: "...moving piece of personal history that transforms ordinary moments into literature." This author's unbelievable detailed recollection of his childhood is impressive. First saw this book at Barnes and Noble, but actually got it through paperbackswap.com, a fabulous book exchange website.
"She had organized our house so that she was for Sally and me our portcullis; we were quite literally behind her, although the broader truth is that she was behind us, always, and when all her sounds ran together and became one, I could hear her commitment to our lives. I could also hear the telephone and the doorbell, though they seldom rang."
A beautiful and moving memoir. Wistful in tone. I am struck by the honesty of the writing as the author confronts memories that are painful, embarassing, shameful, victorious, and loving. A portrait of an imperfect family in an imperfect world and a boy who grows in wisdom and mercy in front of our eyes.
What a gorgeous book. It's about so much--baseball, family, obsessive fandom, dealing with the mental illness of a family member. The writer goes off on tangents that are all ultimately rewarding and interesting and, somehow, just right.
What can't be ignored is the writing--it's stunning.
What can't be ignored is the writing--it's stunning.
Yes, it's a baseball memoir....and also a memoir of growing up with a mentally ill father. He writes very, very well.
Wonderful writing.
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“What I missed was what I missed every year when the season ended and abruptly the radio was quiet. I missed them.”
—
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