The Cactus League
A Novel
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3.5 • 60 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR and Lit Hub. A Los Angeles Times Bestseller. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
"In The Cactus League [Emily Nemens] provides her readers with what amounts to a miniature, self-enclosed world that is funny and poignant and lovingly observed." --Charles McGrath, The New York Times Book Review
An explosive, character-driven odyssey through the world of baseball
Jason Goodyear is the star outfielder for the Los Angeles Lions, stationed with the rest of his team in the punishingly hot Arizona desert for their annual spring training. Handsome, famous, and talented, Goodyear is nonetheless coming apart at the seams. And the coaches, writers, wives, girlfriends, petty criminals, and diehard fans following his every move are eager to find out why—as they hide secrets of their own.
Humming with the energy of a ballpark before the first pitch, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League unravels the tightly connected web of people behind a seemingly linear game. Narrated by a sportscaster, Goodyear’s story is interspersed with tales of Michael Taylor, a batting coach trying to stay relevant; Tamara Rowland, a resourceful spring-training paramour, looking for one last catch; Herb Allison, a legendary sports agent grappling with his decline; and a plethora of other richly drawn characters, all striving to be seen as the season approaches. It’s a journey that, like the Arizona desert, brims with both possibility and destruction.
Anchored by an expert knowledge of baseball’s inner workings, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League is a propulsive and deeply human debut that captures a strange desert world that is both exciting and unforgiving, where the most crucial games are the ones played off the field.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Nemens's insightful debut, it's 2011 and players of the L.A. Lions professional baseball team are reporting for spring training at their new facility, Salt River Fields, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Under a hot Southwestern sun, a sportswriter waits to interview the team's golden boy, left fielder Jason Goodyear, whose handsome fa ade belies some unsavory secrets. Readers see Jason glancingly from eight different points of view: a put-upon batting coach whose mantra is "what would Joe DiMaggio do?"; a baseball groupie who sets her sights on him; a sports agent forced to cover up his client's misdeeds to protect a Nike contract; the team owner with his own fa ade to maintain; a pitcher desperately trying to hide a painful elbow injury; the organist at the field where the Lions play; the seven-year-old son of a drug-addicted single mother who runs one of the concessions at the field; and Jason's ex-wife, who finds herself reduced in the pecking order with the other players' wives. Largely plotless, the book is a vivid collection of stories, as each character is brought to life in convincing detail, though the sportswriter's interstitial musings can be intrusive. Still, this debut entertainingly illuminates people and problems usually overlooked in the sports pages.
Customer Reviews
Multiple Storylines with No Ending
Initially, I was excited to read this book, and there were a few interesting storylines I thought the author would connect: maybe the physical therapist and the baseball player or the strung out mom and the couple whose house they trashed. Instead, each storyline stayed siloed, and the book didn’t contain a cohesiveness to it. There was no beginning, middle or end. Occasionally some elements felt gimmicky: for example, one portion is written in an interview style, but readers don’t receive any benefit from this.
Overall I was very unimpressed with this book as it felt a lot like an unfinished project.