The Southpaw (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Mark Harris Finkelstein
- First Published: 1953
- Type of Plot: Comic social morality
- Time of Work: 1952
- Setting: New York City; other locations have been given the fictitious names of Perkinsville, New York; Agua Clara; and Queen City
- Principal Characters: Henry Wiggen, Pop, Aaron Webster, Holly Webster, Patricia Moors, “Sad Sam” Yale, Dutch Schnell, Red Traphagen, Perry Simpson
- Genres: Long fiction, Sports fiction
- Subjects: 1950’s, Maturation or coming of age, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, New York City, Baseball
- Locales: New York, NY
The Novel
Much of the action in The Southpaw concerns the experiences of Henry Wiggen, a young left-handed pitcher, after he joins the New York Mammoths and becomes part of their fight to win the pennant in the year 1952. Henry Wiggen relates his experiences in his own language, and his viewpoint is emphasized in the novel’s full title: The Southpaw, by Henry W. Wiggen: Punctuation Freely Inserted and Greatly Improved by Mark Harris. Born in Perkinsville, a small town in upstate New York, Henry Wiggen, like the entire town, is devoted to baseball. When he...
[The entire page is 2419 words long]
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