This is a beautifully written and imaginatively conceived historical novel. Its author is a well-published academic historian who teaches at Kenyon College. This is his first novel. Peter Rutkoff brings together several strands of American history (e.g., baseball, race, and Chicago.) Real people--Rube Foster, Charles Comiskey, and Shoeless Joe Jackson--encounter the author's wonderfully-drawn fictional characters. Rutkoff's evocation of Chicago is also as superb as it is knowledgeable. And the storyline--which I won't reveal--is most compelling. This is, as they say, a page turner. If your literary appetite combines baseball and American history, read this book!

I came to this book through my interest in social history. I came away from the book a fan of baseball as well. The author drops you into 1919 Chicago and into the heads of all those involved in a high-stakes and incendiary decision to bring a Negro player to the Chicago White Sox. Despite a new appreciation for baseball, for me the highlight of the book is the portrayal of "small" lives. The tragedy that racial prejudice brings to a young, poor woman coming to Chicago from the South makes this book resonate much longer than any game-winning home run.

The book is packed full of detailed information on progressive movements in the art worlds of New York City from the 1890s to the 1970s -- literature, painting, photography, ballet, drama, architecture, jazz and classical music (but not broadcasting)-- with over 60 excellent black-and-white illustrations. Admittedly the authors' grasp of New York geography sometimes falters: 29 West 35th Street is placed "near Penn Station"; Sloan's painting 'Sixth Avenue and Thirtieth Street' supposedly has Times Square "distantly" in sight; a walk up Broadway from the Battery leads to "City Park". But that should not detract from the extensive and solid material on the city's advances in the visual arts.