Perfect Silence

by Jeff Hutton

A novel of baseball and the Civil War, and a love story. Joseph Tyler is a baseball-loving Virginia farmboy swept into fighting for the Confederacy. Wounded and left for dead, he rises from the burning battlefield, rescues a dying Union soldier from the flames, and is captured. Sent to a foul Union prison in New York, he bears a letter for the dead soldier’s fiancée. He escapes from the prison with a dramatic sprint from center field during a baseball game. Sheltered by a kind widow, he waits until the war ends, and then finally delivers the letter. In a Hudson River town he starts playing semi-pro baseball, and meets and falls in love with the intended recipient of the -letter.

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2000

Reviews

[Eva P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just. Wow.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book because it was about baseball (one of the story lines) but it was so hard to stay interested. He is a very descriptive writer but I didn't always agree with his choice of words such as it begins "Dawn feathered across the sky...pouring like ice melting..." To me that is two different pictures and I had a hard time getting by this word picture. Was it feathering or pouring? This is just one example and the book is full of sentences like this. There was also a lot of going back in time not only of the main character but of others involved in the storyline. This usually doesn't bother me but he did it when I didn't expect it and sometimes I found it confusing. The story itself is about a young Southern farm boy joining up with the Rebel forces near the end of the Civil War. Woven into the story is the history of the development of baseball in the US. If you don't mind reading descriptive paragraphs that have nothing to do with story development (as far as I could see) this is a great book.

[Mary Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanted to like this novel but couldn't follow the story especially at the beginning. Once into the book the story fell into place. Liked the baseball section better. The author came to our book club and through the discussion the book did become clearer. So the rating should be a 3.5 not a three.