backs on and even openly disparaging the controlled defiance of Jackie Robinson, advocating armed resistance or, at the very least, conspicuous insolence. Nor was integration the unquestioned goal. As in some previous historical periods, separatism was being extolled by a number of black leaders. Just as Robinson’s fiery image had amounted to a rejection of the consummately patient stance taken by most of the established black leaders of his time, Robinson was now being spurned.

Such is often the relation between generations, Kahn seems to be saying, regardless of whether race is involved. Kahn portrays his own alienation from his parents in the first half of his book. Indeed, even baseball cannot fully bridge the distance between Kahn and his father at the time of the latter’s death.

The relationship between father and son also is crucial in the sections on Dodger curveballer Carl Erskine, whose chapter revolves around his patient love for a young mongoloid son; Clem Labine, whose teenage son lost a leg in Vietnam; and Jackie Robinson, who could only watch as his eldest son, Jackie Jr., struggled against drug addiction only to die in a tragic automobile accident. The bonds between generations, between fathers and sons, are strong. They open us to different kinds of hurt. Gaps (or barriers) appear, and they are sometimes wedgelike, clouding our understanding and threatening our sense of control. (Kahn also explored this theme in The Battle for Morningside Heights: Why Students Rebel, published in 1970 while he was working on The Boys of Summer.)

In addition to the power of these themes, Kahn’s book is distinguished by its candor and, therefore, also by the depth of its characterizations. The Boys of Summer is not a bitter or a cruel book. It is only mildly gossipy. The book does, however, contain revelations of character that undoubtedly led, or at least could have led, to hurt feelings. In short, it seems as though Kahn allowed truth to win out over sentiment or perhaps even civility. Thus, Kahn is open about Roy Campanella’s unwillingness, as a player, to stand behind his statements to reporters, Billy Cox’s indifference to the racial slurs of his companions in a Pennsylvania bar, Carl Furillo’s unrelenting bitterness toward Dodger management and the lords of organized baseball. Kahn’s candor sometimes gets in the way of what his readers may want to believe about their favorite players, but it also lends the book the authenticity of great literature. The book is so true that it sometimes hurts. As a result, the old Dodgers come alive as real, complicated, sometimes happy, sometimes troubled human beings, people whom the reader may never meet but with whom he will have experienced genuine communion. This is no less true about Kahn’s parents, whom Kahn also does not idealize. Only Kahn himself remains somewhat in the shadows, with only a few hints of the restlessness in his own life: a first marriage that went sour during the period covered by the book, a second one that would survive the book’s publication by only a year or so.

It is through his convincing characterization that Kahn achieves a final thematic accomplishment: casting profound light on just what it is that makes a team. It is not the presence of superhuman virtue or heretofore undiscovered compatibility of personalities. Harmony remains imperfect, even problematic. Yet, somehow, disparate individuals work together toward a common purpose. The Dodgers were not all best buddies. They did respect one another, however, and they left their personal differences aside in order to cooperate. Such a working relationship lacks the beauty and grace of universal brotherhood; pouring champagne over a teammate’s head or leaping onto a twenty-person victory pile may never replace more conventional forms of religiosity. Still, the model of the team, as presented by Kahn, gives one hope that it is within the bounds of human nature for diverse people to put their differences aside in order to pursue a variety of worthy ends.