Nicholas Dawidoff's books include
The Fly Swatter, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and
In the Country of Country, which was named one of the greatest all-time works of travel literature by
Conde Nast Traveller. His first book,
The Catcher Was A Spy: The Mysterious Life Of Moe Berg was a national bestseller and appeared on many best book lists. His new book is
The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness and Baseball. He is also the editor of the Library of America’s
Baseball: A Literary Anthology.
One exchange from an April 2008 interview with
Princeton Alumni Weekly:
You are a longtime Boston Red Sox fan. Has life changed since the Sox started winning championships?
This was terrifying for Red Sox fans in the abstract: What would we do when our team actually became successful? We had so much invested in this notion of being fans of the team that was a lot like man — sort of fated and doomed by nature. It’s pleasurable to win, but I think for me, the pleasures of victory aren’t nearly comparable to the pleasures of process. For so long I had wondered what it would be like and how I would feel if the Red Sox won the World Series.
And what it felt like [in 2004] was the same as it felt like every year. I was glad that they won, and it was a nice feeling, but ultimately, I just missed baseball. I had to trudge on through the winter.
Read the full Q & A.Read
an excerpt from The Crowd Sounds Happy and
learn more about the book at the publisher's website.
Check out
Dawidoff's list of the five best baseball novels.
Writers Read: Nicholas Dawidoff.
--Marshal Zeringue
