by W. P. Kinsella

William P. Kinsella grew up in western Canada, later moving to Iowa to earn a master's degree in fine arts. He also grew into an avid baseball fan as an adult. Once married and settled in rural Alberta, Canada, he and his wife began touring America's major league baseball parks every season. In 1980, by then an established writer of short fiction, Kinsella published a story, "Shoeless Joe Comes to Iowa," about the famous Chicago White Sox player of the 1920s. Two years later, this story became the first chapter in a full-length novel about the centrality of baseball to the American way of life.

Events in History at the Time of the Novel

The business of baseball. "Shoeless Joe" Jackson was a Chicago White Sox outfielder who was accused, along with seven other players, of conspiring to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series...