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Joseph Burke was badly wounded at Guadalcanal during World War II and while he was hospitalized and recovering, his wife left him for another man. When he was finally released from the hospital, there was a long period when he did very little. Then, on a whim, he became a prize fighter and when that didn't work out, a collector for a loan shark. The man he worked for suggested he find other employment because he did not like taking orders. So he became a bodyguard for a young woman, mostly to protect her from her ex-boyfriend. When he killed two men, he was fired from this job. It is now 1947 and Branch Rickey has decided to bring Jackie Robinson up to the major leagues to play baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers, thus breaking the color line that has existed for many decades. There are numerous people who do not approve; some who threaten Robinson's life. Mr Rickey hires Burke to protect Robinson, both from others and from himself. This is really the story of Burke and how he finds his way back from the horrors of war and the fear of losing everything he had. But it also is the story of a very courageous man, Jackie Robinson, who had to become the symbol for an entire race and deal with all the trash talk and physical threats with grace and dignity, something very difficult for a proud man to do. Parker captures the essence of a time when a major shift in perceptions and actions began to take place. Certainly he shows us a little of what it must have been like to be the only black player in organized baseball. When they were in the South the two of them had to stay at black-only hotels. And, in a regrettable reversal, in situations where Robinson was meeting with other blacks, Burke was the odd man out. Sometimes black hotels refused to give him a room. In lean and powerful prose Parker takes us into the heart of the story and develops the characters of these two men. We see the events from Burke's point of view (although the story is not told in first person). We see both men through their actions, for neither talks very much or very revealingly. The dialogue, however, is purely Parkeresque, short, pointed, direct. The other characters are well-drawn also. Parker has the ability to create memorable characters with just a few images and that ability does not fail him in this story. He gives very sparse description and yet the setting is quite clear to the reader. And clearest of all is Ebbets Field. Occasionally interspersed in the story there are the personal memories of a young boy named Bobbie who worships the Dodgers and remembers every baseball game he has ever seen. In many ways this entire book feels like a love paean to an era of baseball and to true heroes, men who persevered against external enemies and men who fought to make this country finally become what it always promised to be. Of course, neither fight has ever been won. I had quit reading Parker because his books increasingly felt formulaic and all of one piece, like they had been churned out by a man growing weary of writing. But this book has the excitement, the zest for life, the thoughtfulness that his earlier books possessed. It is truly a very fine book.
Reviewed by Sally Fellows, June 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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