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The Natural Sports Drama Paperback Book by Bernard Malamud from Avon Books 1980
The Natural, Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is also the first—and some would say still the best—novel ever written about baseball.
In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material—the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era—and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work.
Four decades later, Alfred Kazin's comment still holds true: "Malamud has done something which—now that he has done it!—looks as if we have been waiting for it all our lives.
He has really raised the whole passion and craziness and fanaticism of baseball as a popular spectacle to its ordained place in mythology."
Book is in acceptable condition. General shelf and corner wear. Some white marks on the front and back cover. Some fraying along the cover edges. The spine has some issues (see photo #3). Cover creasing. Store sticker on the back cover. Dog earing. Underlining and circling scattered throughout. Spine slanting. A solid reading copy. Please see photos for details, and let me know if you have any questions. Shipping and Return Details
I'm John, just a regular small-town guy.
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