Will I love Shoeless Joe?

As I was looking for a soothing read after two powerful nonfiction books, I found Shoeless Joe, and discovered a genre where imaginary characters do magical and fantastic things within a realistic setting.

In this case, imaginary baseball heroes (and a few convicted scoundrels) are drawn to a hope-filled baseball diamond created within an Iowa cornfield. And so are author J.D. Salinger, Ray Kinsella, and Shoeless Joe Jackson.

The field is real, and the players are as real as you allow them to be. Writers can make dreamworlds intentionally difficult to grasp, which was also one of the points of… show more.

This novel is less well-known, and much more accomplished, than the movie based on it – Field of Dreams. Where the movie is sappy, the book is lyrical and warmly nostalgic for a time and place – rural Iowa in the 1970s. There is a clear magical realism vibe to the whole thing. The plot structure of the novel is a very shaggy dog involving a baseball field in a corn field, the kidnapping of a famous novelist and numerous dead people coming back to life. The book is big-hearted and much of the writing is luminous.