His entry begins:
An unanticipated benefit of parenthood comes when your grown children start recommending interesting books to you.About The Babe Ruth Deception, from the publisher:
Some years back, a son living in California urged me to read Wallace Stegner’s Pulitzer-winning novel, Angle of Repose. But I didn’t know much about Stegner and the title sounded pokey, so I let it slide. Big mistake. I ran down the book recently, and found that it’s terrific.
Stegner’s lyrical language movingly describes complex characters in difficult situations. The story involves a mining engineer’s odyssey through the post-Civil War West. Now mining engineering sounds pretty sleep-inducing at first, it affords a wonderful window on Americans’ race to exploit new lands (and water). Writing about the 1880s, Stegner captures the moral quandaries that surround...[read on]
As the Roaring Twenties get under way, corruption seems everywhere—from the bootleggers flouting Prohibition to the cherished heroes of the American Pastime now tarnished by scandal. Swept up in the maelstrom are Dr. Jamie Fraser and Speed Cook...Learn more about the book and author at David O. Stewart's website and blog.
Babe Ruth, the Sultan of Swat, is having a record-breaking season in his first year as a New York Yankee. In 1920, he will hit more home runs than any other team in the American League. Larger than life on the ball field and off, Ruth is about to discover what the Chicago White Sox players accused of throwing the 1919 World Series are learning—baseball heroes are not invulnerable to scandal. With suspicion in the air, Ruth’s 1918 World Series win for the Boston Red Sox is now being questioned. Under scrutiny by the new baseballcommissioner and enmeshed with gambling kingpin Arnold Rothstein, Ruth turns for help to Speed Cook—a former professional ballplayer himself before the game was segregated and now a promoter of Negro baseball—who’s familiar with the dirty underside of the sport.
Cook in turn enlists the help of Dr. Jamie Fraser, whose wife Eliza is coproducing a silent film starring the Yankee outfielder. Restraint does not come easily to the reckless Ruth, but the Frasers try to keep him in line while Cook digs around.
As all this plays out, Cook’s son Joshua and Fraser’s daughter Violet are brought together by a shocking tragedy. But an interracial relationship in 1920 feels as dangerous as a public scandal—even more so because Joshua is heavily involved in bootlegging. Trying to protect Ruth and their own children, Fraser and Cook find themselves playing a dangerous game...
Once again masterfully blending fact and fiction, David O. Stewart delivers a nail-biting historical mystery that captures an era unlike any America has seen before or since in all its moral complexity and dizzying excitement.
My Book, The Movie: The Wilson Deception.
The Page 69 Test: The Wilson Deception.
My Book, The Movie: The Babe Ruth Deception.
Writers Read: David O. Stewart.
--Marshal Zeringue
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