Today I decided not to spend every waking moment on my computer. I shut it down to read Calico Joe by John Grisham, and I'm glad I did. I have plenty of e-books, and I like reading books on my phone or on my iPad, but I also find with e-books that I keep checking my e-mail, blogs, and Facebook far too often. This was a good break for me.
Calico Joe is about a baseball player, a young phenom who made it to the bigs but didn't last very long. The story is told in the first person by Paul Casey/Tracey, the son of a sometimes-okay pitcher for the Mets. The story really is about Paul and his father Warren as much as it is about Calico Joe.
Calico Joe is VERY well-written. The word choice, the flow, the subtle humour, and the human warmth of the novel all made it a very enjoyable read. It does not have nearly the suspense of, say, Bleachers by Grisham but it has the same human appeal told in a similarly retrospective manner. And it doesn't have coming-to-grips-with-life phase that is in Playing for Pizza, also by Grisham, and yet it has much of the same love of living that was in that book, which I reviewed here.
I like most (not all) of Grisham's novels. He has a captivating style for sure. Like many of his mysteries, Calico Joe is set primarily in the South, but much of the reflection is about the life of the Tracey family in White Plains, NY, as well. Grisham's admiration for the hominess of the south comes through, as does his wariness of small town living, where everybody knows your business.
The book is really about "the code" in baseball, a set of unwritten rules about how one must play the game, and what must be done to enforce those rules. It is also about the depth and shallowness of human relationships.
I really liked Calico Joe. I liked it as much as I liked Bleachers or Playing for Pizza. Taken as a group, they make an excellent sports trilogy from John Grisham.