Bookshelf Mini-Review: The Magician

The Magician (The Donora Story Collection Book 3), by Kathleen Shoop

Continuing on my “summer of fiction”…

“The Magician” was just of the nicknames for Stanley Frank Musial. Shoop’s latest (last?) in her Donora Story Collection focuses almost exclusively on his pre-professional life and his relationship with his family. As young Stan grows up, his skills on the diamond become more and more pronounced, to the joy of his fellow Donorans and his mother, Mary, and the consternation to his father, who, like many immigrants of the day, looked on sports as a waste of time; he wants his son to get a real job and contribute to the family.

But Stan is the hero of the ball field, admired by all (save his dad and at times his younger brother, Henry, who is obviously jealous of his talents).

The author has obviously done a great job in researching the town during the period and presents most of her characters — especially the put-upon Mary who struggles to maintain the household under difficult conditions of the Depression as well as a proud husband who can be a bit unreliable at times — in a loving and sympathetic light; I’m sure the other two books in the collection are similarly well scoped out.

But I found her depiction of a preteen Stan and his friends a bit excessive. I can’t speak for everyone, but my 11-year-old gang never spoke as eloquently as they did or were as educated in the nuances of the game. The themes of success at baseball and failure with his paternal relationship are repeated a bit much in this 509-page paperback.

There is also a somewhat muddled and unnecessary connection with a modern-day nonagenarian who has created a scrapbook about Musial’s younger days. Those chapters flit in and out of the narrative and really don’t add much to the overall story.

Despite these flaws, The Magician makes for some nice summertime escapist reading.