W. P. (Bill) Kinsella was the author of some 24 books and more than 200 stories. He was best known for his baseball fiction: The Thrill of the Grass; Go the Distance; The Iowa Baseball Confederacy; The Dixon Cornbelt League; Box Socials; and Shoeless Joe, his multi-award-winning novel that became the classic movie Field of Dreams, nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Kinsella's other books include Dance Me Outside (also made into a feature film); Scars; Born Indian; The Moccasin Telegraph; The Fencepost Chronicles; The Miss Hobbema Pageant; and Red Wolf, Red Wolf, from which the story "Lieberman in Love" was adapted for the screen and went on to win an Academy Award for Best Short Feature. He died in 2016.
“A whimsical portrait of 1940s-era small-town life, crowded with
everything from owl-calling contests to raucous,
five-day Ukrainian weddings. It's a delightful comic
ramble, written in quirky, digressive style. . . . Richly
textured.”—Los Angeles Times
“Wonderful . . . Charming and funny . . . If you've never been to a
box social, go to this one.”—Fannie Flagg, The New York
Times Book Review
“A sweeping comic work . . . Welcome to the seductively poetic
fictional world of W.P. Kinsella.”—People
“A story filled with nostalgia about a time when the game was
played on real grass and was called on account of darkness. . . . A
down-home style that resembles the humorous voice of Garrison
Keillor.”—The New York Times
Kinsella, whose classic Shoeless Joe found another incarnation in the movie Field of Dreams , evokes the atmosphere of small-town ball fields and other aspects of rural life in this colorful, comic reminiscence of multi-ethnic farm society in Depression-era Canada. Purporting to tell ``the story of how Truckbox Al McClintock almost got a tryout with the genuine St. Louis Cardinals of the National Baseball League,'' narrator Jamie O'Day leads the reader on a rambling tour of the rural Alberta hamlets near which he and Truckbox grew up, the closest being a town called Fark. Inheriting storytelling talent from his father, a transplanted South Carolina carpenter whom he often quotes, Jamie also passes along insights picked up while eavesdropping on the gossip meetings of the ``Fark Female Farmerettes.'' With humor and tenderness Kinsella evokes the social rites of the Norwegian-, German-, Ukrainian- and English-speaking hillbillies, their courtships and heartbreaks, fistfights and philanderings, through a series of weddings, dances, whist drives and box socials. Jamie's teenage memories poke gentle fun at small-town society and at adulthood itself while still celebrating his coming-of-age--the real story here, despite Truckbox McClintock's brush with athletic fame. (May)
YA-- A story about rural life in Alberta, Canada in the 1940s. Here, people must rely on one another for almost all aspects of their daily lives, despite their ethnic diversity and foibles. Kinsella shows how they react to their neighbors' indiscretions, to cultural differences, and to the strengths and weaknesses of individual members of their communities. He adeptly captures the special flavor of small-town life, where everyone knows everyone else's business, and the pace of life before the communication explosion. This includes the social aspects, such as the auctioning of lunches at ``box socials.'' A baseball theme weaves a common thread through the lives of the characters. The author uses an unusual, repetitive style of writing; at times he begins almost every paragraph in certain sections with the same words, or repeats entire phrases or sentences, using them as adjectives modifying some new piece of information. While some readers might find it annoying, others will be amused. The book also gives good insight into the history of a specific area of North America during the time of mass European immigration and societal integration.-- Rose Calio, R . E . Lee High School, Springfield, VA
"A whimsical portrait of 1940s-era small-town life, crowded with
everything from owl-calling contests to raucous, five-day Ukrainian
weddings. It's a delightful comic ramble, written in quirky,
digressive style. . . . Richly textured."-Los Angeles
Times
"Wonderful . . . Charming and funny . . . If you've never been to a
box social, go to this one."-Fannie Flagg, The New York Times
Book Review
"A sweeping comic work . . . Welcome to the seductively poetic
fictional world of W.P. Kinsella."-People
"A story filled with nostalgia about a time when the game was
played on real grass and was called on account of darkness. . . . A
down-home style that resembles the humorous voice of Garrison
Keillor."-The New York Times
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