Jeff Silverman's Feature Interview is posted

[Agman]

Thanks, George. A toast will be offered in your name whenever a royalty check arrives in my mailbox.

js

[Agman]

Andy --

No, I've never heard the Orson Welles tape, but the perverse part of me would sure like to. I've heard the Lasorda tape a few thousand times. Better than that, I witnessed the one moment in Lasorda's life he was absolutely speechless. In the Dodger clubhouse. After Gibson's improbable homer in the '88 Series. Lasorda, by the way, is a world-class story-teller without the self-awareness to realize that almost every story he tells winds up reflecting badly on him on his utter self-absorbtion (I know. I've heard them all.) He really believes in his heart of hearts -- which is why there was never raising his consciousness -- that it took the greatest lefty of the modern era (Koufax) and the arcane bonus-baby rules then in effect -- and not a miserable 13.50 ERA and an overused minor league arm -- to send him back to the bushes in '55.


Bob --

On golf, Updike's had one clear advantage over Darwin. He didn't write about golf for a living. He only seems to have written about golf when the spirit moves (even Updike's not making enough money -- remember what Dr. Johnson said about writing and money -- from his essays to do it just for the cash.) On the other hand, I haven't seen all of Darwin, so I don't know what his off days -- assuming he had a few -- were like. Ultimately, though, what's the difference? Reading each is a joy.


Tommy --

You know you're my hero, and will be even moreso when my pencil arrives, but -- and if I somehow miscommunicated this last year, I'm sorry -- but you raised this in an earlier post and I'd like to correct it. I never intended to make you the centerpiece of the SI story. The site itself was the centerpiece, with Ran the main subplot, and the Rustic Canyon the setting that brings everybody away from the screen and onto the golf course. You were certainly a significant part of that, but not the base on which it would be built. One thing, as you know, I did insist on: In our photos, you'd only be portrayed as the intense golfer you are. That -- plus the wraparounds -- is why the cover shot  is such a classic, and, I suspect, why everyone talks about it with such affection.


One more thing, and this is addressed to anyone. Has nobody out there read Bud Shrake's novel "Billy Boy"?  If anybody has, what do you think?

[George Pazin]

Thanks for the tip on Billy Boy, Jeff - it was the book that Golf in the Kingdom aspires to be.

I'm not much of a literary critic (most of my English teachers & profs indicated my papers read more like legal briefs), but I thoroughly enjoyed the novel. Entertaining, well written, nowhere near the pretension of other mystical golf novels, all in all a good quick read.

I wonder if it would sell more if it were sorted with all the other golf books. At Borders it was with all the other fiction. Other golf novels are in the golf section. Just an observation.

[Agman]

George --

Sorry it's taken so long to respond but I just got back from a magazine assignment that's kept me blessedly untethered to my computer for the last week. Anyway, glad you liked "Billy Boy" so much. Golf novels tend to be pretty treacly affairs, especially if they try tapping into the mystical aspects of the game, but this one managed to elude the pitfalls entirely. I think it's a wonderful piece of work, and I'm glad you agree. I still can't believe no one else out there has a rant or rave on this one.

Let me put up two other suggestions that I'm partial to. Both are a bit dated, but the writers behind them are stellar, so the books themselves have become interesting snapshots into the game and so much that surrounded it at the times the books were written. The first is a collection of short stories written by Paul Gallico and published in the early 1940s called "Golf Is a Friendly Game." Gallico was a tremendous writer, and while this isn't quite up to the eagle standards of "The Snow Goose," the stories are really fun. (So, why, you ask, do you never see them in golf anthologies. The Gallico estate never gives rights. I know. I tried to get my favorite Gallico -- alas, not in this collection -- called "A Heavenly Round" for "The Greatest Golf Stories Ever Told," and couldn't. This story answers the eternal question: If every swing were perfect, and every shot went exactly where you  intended it to go, where would you really be -- in Heaven or... well, just read it for yourself."

The other book is John P. Marquand's "Life at Happy Knoll" from the mid 1950s. Originally published in installments in SI, it's a series of letters chronicling the trials and tribulations of an upper crust country club. Marquand was a master of examining the swells and the swell life, and this one remains a hoot.

Both these books are a bit hard to find, but someone's generally trying to peddle a decommissioned library compy somewhere on the web.

js

[ChipOat]

Jeff:

Got the book and started reading; "Classics" are in storage so no comparison possible but your tome is excellent in its own "write" (sorry) either way.

Will find this thread again when I finish.