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Shoeless Joe | Introduction

Canadian writer W. P. Kinsella's first novel, Shoeless Joe, published in Boston in 1982, is an ingenious baseball story that smoothly weaves together fact and fantasy. The narrator, Ray Kinsella, is a baseball fanatic and dreamer who owns a farm in Iowa. One day he hears a mysterious voice saying, "If you build it, he will come." Ray believes this is an instruction to build a baseball field at his farm and that the "he" is his father's hero, Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Jackson was banned from baseball for life following the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, in which he and seven other players accepted bribes to throw the World Series. From this premise, Kinsella spins his tale full of magic and nostalgia. Shoeless Joe shows up, and Ray continues to pursue his dream, even traveling cross-country to kidnap the reclusive writer J. D. Salinger who joins Ray in his quest to restore the broken dreams of the past.

Set in idyllic rural Iowa and told in lyrical, poetic, sometimes sentimental prose, Shoeless Joe is a story of the power of the imagination and the triumph of love. It is about dreams and hope and trust and the fulfillment of long-buried desires. The dominant note throughout is the characters' consuming love of baseball, which is presented almost as a religion, and is contrasted, favorably, with the spiritual dryness of conventional Christianity.

Shoeless Joe was made into the popular movie Field of Dreams in 1989, and for a while the words "If you build it, he will come" became almost as well-known in American popular culture as the famous phrase "Say it ain't so, Joe," allegedly spoken by a young fan to Shoeless Joe during the Black Sox Scandal.

Shoeless Joe Summary

Chapter 1: Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa
Shoeless Joe begins with the narrator, Ray Kinsella, a young farmer in Iowa, describing how one day when sitting on the verandah of his home, he heard the voice of a ballpark announcer saying, "If you build it, he will come." Ray, who is a highly imaginative man and great lover of baseball, takes this as an instruction to build a baseball field in one of the cornfields at his farm. At first, he builds only a left field. Ray believes that the "he" that the voice refers to is Shoeless Joe Jackson, who gained notoriety for his part in a bribery scandal that marred the 1919 World Series.

One night, baseball players appear on the field, including Shoeless Joe in left field, and Ray settles down to watch him play. In Ray's eyes, the scene is as complete as at any major-league park he has visited. But he notices that Shoeless Joe is the only player who appears to have any substance; the others are shadowy, ghost-like. Ray talks to Shoeless Joe, who tells him about his love of baseball, and Ray promises that he will finish the whole field.

Chapter 2: They Tore Down the Polo Grounds in 1964
Ray finishes building the entire field; it takes him three baseball seasons. One by one, the so-called Unlucky Eight, the Black Sox baseball players who were banned for life in 1920, appear. Now only the right fielder and the catcher are still shadowy. Ray's daughter Karin also has the ability to see the games that take place. Next, Ray hears the baseball announcer say, mysteriously, "Ease his pain." Ray intuitively understands this to be a message about the reclusive writer J. D. Salinger. On the basis of a newspaper article he once read, Ray believes that Salinger is a baseball fan but that he has not seen a game live for over twenty-five years. Ray decides to visit Salinger in New Hampshire and take him to a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston. Another link that connects Ray to Salinger is the fact that in one of his short stories, Salinger created a character named Ray Kinsella. There is also a character named Richard Kinsella in Salinger's book, The Catcher in the Rye, and Ray has a twin brother by that name.

On his long drive, Ray stops to attend ball games in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Yankee Stadium in New York. When he reaches New Hampshire, he waylays Salinger... ยป Complete Shoeless Joe Summary