Bearing W.P. Kinsella's trademark combination of "sweet-natured prose and a richly imagined world" (Philadelphia Inquirer), The Iowa Baseball Confederacy tells the story of Gideon Clark, a man on a quest. He is out to prove to the world that the indomitable Chicago Cubs traveled to Iowa in the summer of 1908 for an exhibition game against an amateur league, the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. But a simple game somehow turned into a titanic battle of more than two thousand innings, and Gideon Clark struggles to set the record straight on this infamous game that no one else believes ever happened.
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Book Description
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From Publishers Weekly
On the day he met his true love, a carnival performer named Darling Maudie, Matthew Clarke was literally struck by lightning and magically imbued with the knowledge that in 1908 the Chicago Cubs had traveled to Onamata, Iowa, to play a seemingly endless game against an all-star amateur team, the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. He spends the rest of his life trying to prove this fact to the worldeven writing a dissertation on itbut no one else remembers the Confederacy or the game. When Matthew commits an imaginative suicide (by allowing himself to be hit by a stray line drive), his son Gideon, the hero of this tale, inherits his father's obsession. With the help of an old family friend who has a glimmer of memory of the game, Gideon and a friend, Stan, travel back through time to 1908, to witness the event and to learn about the mysterious forces that caused a memory lapse in those who witnessed it. In his first novel since Shoeless Joe, Kinsella returns to the magical turf he created there: a loving mixture of baseball, life and fantasy, in a world where dreams don't have to come true, because they have a validity all their own.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"A memorable addition to the literature about the summer's game...A riveting mystery with a host of fascinating characters, a first-rate ghost story, and the tale of a quest that ends not with the object of desire, but with the realization of love. Kinsella has another hit on his hands. He's still batting one thousand."
-- the Detroit Press
"Freighted with mythical machinery, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy requires the leavening of some sprightly prose. Kinsella is equal to it. His love for baseball is evident in the lyrical descriptions of the game."
-- Chicago Tribune
"Whether or not you like baseball, read the Bible, play a musical instrument, like Indian folklore, time travel, or the Chicago Cubs, you will like The Iowa Baseball Confederacy."
-- USA Today --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
-- the Detroit Press
"Freighted with mythical machinery, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy requires the leavening of some sprightly prose. Kinsella is equal to it. His love for baseball is evident in the lyrical descriptions of the game."
-- Chicago Tribune
"Whether or not you like baseball, read the Bible, play a musical instrument, like Indian folklore, time travel, or the Chicago Cubs, you will like The Iowa Baseball Confederacy."
-- USA Today --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
Format:Paperback
I love books and I love baseball and I love the way W. P. Kinsella mixes fantasy with reality in his novels. I've known people who think there was simply a bit too much fantasy in THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY, but, for me, there wasn't. This is a more complicated story than SHOELESS JOE (on which the film, FIELD OF DREAMS was based), to be sure, but, like SHOELESS JOE, THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY contains magic. Not just magical realism, but magic.
THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY begins when Matthew Clarke is struck by lightning. Coming to, he realizes that he "knows" something no one else knows: that on July 4, 1908, the Chicago Cubs played an almost 2000 inning game in Onamata, Iowa with a little known amateur team called the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. Although, Matthew writes his Masters thesis on the game, everyone denies the existence of the Iowa Baseball Confederacy and Matthew can find no trace of it anywhere...but in his own mind. With his life seemingly in ruins, Matthew, in 1978, allows himself to be hit by a line drive, committing suicide. Matthew's death, however, doesn't mark the end of the search for the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. Upon Matthew's death, his son, Gideon, discovers that he has "inherited" his father's memory of the game and must set out on a quest of his own to prove its existence.
Gideon and his friend, Stan, know there must be some logical (or even illogical) reason why no one can remember this historic game or even the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. Together, they find a way to travel back to July 4, 1908 and watch the game, and learn the truth, themselves. What they see is nothing like what they expected. Involved are floods, a Native American and even Leonardo da Vinci, who floats by in a hot air balloon. And, Onamata was, in 1908, not called Onamata. The second half of THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY is filled with the strangest baseball game anyone will ever read about, anywhere, but it's certainly one I wouldn't have wanted to miss.
W.P. Kinsella is an extraordinary writer and he's one of only a handful of writers who can really handle magical realism well. While his short stories are filled with melancholy and loss, his novels are a mix of the homespun, the real and the fantastic...and, more importantly, he pulls all of this together and makes us believe. The characters in THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY are very well drawn and I could really feel their hope and their pain. The subplot revolving around the minor league player who finally gets his one big chance is quite poignant and bittersweet.
Kinsella successfully mixes fact and fiction in THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY. There are "real" people in this book: Bill Klem, Three Finger Brown and Frank Chance, and they only serve to help make the forty day game more real.
While THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY is infused with just as much magic as SHOELESS JOE, it is a far denser story, with many more subplots. People needing a more straightforward story might be better off to stick with SHOELESS JOE.
If I have one complaint about THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY, it's that the Biblical symbolism was a little too heavy for me. But it wasn't so heavy as to reduce this book from a five star read to a four star one.
No one writes about baseball or the people involved with the game better than W.P. Kinsella. I would definitely recommend THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY to anyone who loves baseball and can suspend his or her disbelief long enough to let a little magic into his life. It will certainly be worth it.
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I just finished my sophomore year of college. I have had the Iowa Baseball Confederacy in my room forever but I waited until the semester was over to start reading it because I wanted to give it full attention. I read Shoeless Joe a couple of years ago and it is still my all-time favorite book. I went into this one with high expectations. However, they were not met. I just didn't like the characters, didn't care about them. The Plot seemed like a bunch of short stories together that made no sense.
Magic is a key element in Kinsella stories. However, this one just seemed too fantastic. I don't know how players coming back from the dead in Shoeless Joe seemed more realistic than the time-travel, magic Indian, and the obsession with the game in the Iowa Baseball Confederacy, but it just does.
The book is worth a read if you're a Kinsella Fan but don't waste your time otherwise. Read Shoeless Joe again.
By Mehal Shah
Format:Paperback
Its pretty difficult to put this book in a genre. Sports novel? There's a 2,000 inning game in here. Mythology? The characters seem plenty real to me. Lets just say that it belongs in the genre of books that defy classification.
I'm not sure whats so great about this book. I guess its just the fact that when Kinsella says there was this totally fantastic event, you believe him. Who knows why? The man is an amazing writer, and this proves it. By the way, if you are a teacher by all means, assign this book to your class instead of the tired old 19th century british class warfare novel.
I'm not sure whats so great about this book. I guess its just the fact that when Kinsella says there was this totally fantastic event, you believe him. Who knows why? The man is an amazing writer, and this proves it. By the way, if you are a teacher by all means, assign this book to your class instead of the tired old 19th century british class warfare novel.
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4.2 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy
A strange mix of timeslip romance and baseball, that didn't quite light me up the way I might have hoped. Read more
Published on April 6 2004 by sleeping sheepsnake
4.0 out of 5 stars
Magic irrealism
Be sure you like baseball before you read this book: you should be able to stomach a phrase like "Baseball is the only thing white man has done right". Read more
Published on Nov 6 2003 by D. Wijngaarden
5.0 out of 5 stars
Baseball Fever
It normally takes me a month or more to finish a book due to time constraints and a busy schedule, but I cruised through this one in about a week. Read more
Published on July 29 2003 by Bryan Rosengarten
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent novel, what else would you expect from Kinsella?
After reading "Shoeless Joe" my craving for W.P. Kinsella needed to be taken care of. When I picked up "The Iowa Baseball Confederacies" I did not expect to... Read more
Published on May 24 2003 by Brandon Richter
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent novel, what else would you expect from Kinsella?
After reading "Shoeless Joe" my craving for W.P. Kinsella needed to be taken care of. When I picked up "The Iowa Baseball Confederacies" I did not expect to... Read more
Published on May 24 2003 by Brandon Richter
5.0 out of 5 stars
Holy Cow!
This is an excellent story - vividly told - about when the Chicago Cubs came to play the All Stars from a Confederation of regional Iowa amateur baseball teams on July 4th, 1908 -... Read more
Published on Feb 22 2002 by TundraVision
4.0 out of 5 stars
Too Fantastic
W.P. Kinsella's "The Iowa Baseball Confederacy" is about a lot of things: obsession, love, time travel, fantasy, and baseball. Read more
Published on Dec 24 2001 by JD Cetola
4.0 out of 5 stars
book was real whack
Did you like "Field of Dreams"? C'mon, admit it. So it was corny: "Is this heaven?" "No, it's Iowa. Read more
Published on April 23 2001 by Jay Stevens
5.0 out of 5 stars
Midwest Magic Realism
I first picked this up off the bookstore shelf because of that Kevin Costner movie that came out in 1989, but I knew Kinsella for his writing ability before that. Read more
Published on Mar 2 2001 by B. PERKINS
1.0 out of 5 stars
He swings and misses
In purchasing this novel I had hoped to be entertained as much as I was when I watched 'Field of Dreams' the adaptation of one of Kinsella's other novels. Read more
Published on Feb 24 2001
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