Chance

by Steve Shilstone

Wondering whether Nabokov might have left any unpublished manuscripts behind and if so, did they have baseball themes? If anyone reading this knows the answer, please check the files to see if there's a manuscript for a novel named Chance . . . . It's a very good one, full of wit, good humor, and baseball. And if you don't care about the latter, take the advice the book offers in its first paragraph and 'Read it anyway. There's other stuff in it, too.' -Allen Barra, The Palm Beach Post An excerpt Okay, here's the deal. This is a book about a baseball player. Do you care? If you don't care, read it anyway. There's some other stuff in it, too. Chance Caine. Recognize the name? Well, he wants me, an old weird guy poet, to write his story. Why? I'll tell you why. He has made rhythmic marks on paper himself. Some of his efforts aren't even dreck. You can judge for yourself in a minute. He took a class. I gave him an A. So one day he comes to me with a load of scrapbooks, diaries, videos. He says, "Here's my life. How would you like to write my book?" I say, "The thing I make will be the thing I make." I talk like that on purpose sometimes. Art is a conscious attempt at nonverbal communication. Okay? Okay. I lie to convey truth. I lie to make the story better. I am a lying guy. What can I say? I want to write this story. There may be money in it. Why lie? Okay, there's another reason. I gave my students an assignment to write a short short short story no longer than ten sentences. Mr. Caine The Angry Fish The fish hurled himself into the boat slashing left and right with fins, teeth, and daggers. Blood spurted from the severed limbs of the screaming crew. The fish turned a final somersault, stood on its tail on the rail, and shreiked in trembling rage, "Vengeance is mine, haa ha haaa ha! ! !" Then he dove under the waves and was gone. The End What the??? I graded it A and from then on leaned back a little in my chair when he walked by. I leaned back further after I had read his science fiction slash fantasy effort a few weeks later. You'll see that one, too, in time. Who is this guy? Let's see if I can answer that question. So what

224 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1996

About the author

On my journey to becoming an elderly benign writer, I have earned a degree in Anthropology from UCLA, coached youth baseball for 25 years, enjoyed fatherhood, distributed mail for the United States Postal Service, sketched and painted and cartooned and written stories with varying degrees of success, unloaded trucks and worked in the stockrooms of a now defunct department store, jogged, and never surrendered.

Reviews

[Steve Shilstone · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best baseball novel ever written. What? I wrote it? Well, there's that.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok, let me see if I can do this tome a little justice, eh?

Here's the best way I can describe this book:
1. Take the scrappiest players in baseball;
2. Add a pinch of the strangest parts of their lives;
3. Fold in great big dollops of a wisecrackin', word-playing announcer who takes the form of a biographer;
4. Light the damn thing on fire to cook it lightning-fast;
5. Take a Chance on the ending.

Were there parts where I said, "For Christ's sweet sake, slow down"? Yep. That didn't mean I liked it any less. The story seemed to require that momentum, that inertia, in order to make the point of each chapter and the flow of the story. I've said, "Wait, what just happened" at many a Giants game, and reading this you can find yourself doing that.

Least favorite chapter: What happens to Copter.

Favorite chapter: Fan reaction to Chance's retirement. (A football player...ahahahahahahaha...)

This next line is not a judgment of potential readers, but just a lack of vision on my part. If you don't like or don't know baseball, this book won't work for three of the chapters and a couple of intermingled scenes. But I can't relate to that reader, I apologize to admit. For those of us always hungry for plays and process and the nature of the culture, this book cooks up nicely. You may have to keep taking bites, just to find all the flavors.

[Frank Chimkin · Rating 2 out of 5]

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