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  • Pafko at the Wall: The Prologue to Underworld by Don Delillo book cover
  • Pafko at the Wall: The Prologue to Underworld by Don Delillo book cover
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Pafko at the Wall: The Prologue to Underworld

by Don Delillo

A baseball landmark and its wider moment

$18.75 USD
$31.25 USD $18.75 USD
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AlbakiReads Editorial

A baseball landmark and its wider moment

Set around the Giants–Dodgers game at New York’s Polo Grounds on October 3, 1951, Don DeLillo’s novella gathers public figures and spectators into a fictional account of the day Bobby Thomson hit his pennant-winning home run. Jackie Gleason, Toots Shor, Leo Durocher, J. Edgar Hoover, Frank Sinatra and broadcaster Russ Hodges appear within the scene. The game’s decisive moment shares space with news that the Soviet Union has tested an atomic bomb, linking a celebrated sports event to the anxieties and public figures of its era. The book’s appeal lies in this compact collision of baseball history, celebrity and Cold War context.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in baseball history and the 1951 Giants–Dodgers game.
  • Readers curious about fiction that brings historical public figures together.
  • Readers exploring American popular culture and Cold War-era settings.

Themes

Baseball and collective memoryCelebrity and public lifeCold War anxietyAmerican history

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"There's a long drive.
It's gonna be.
I believe.
The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant."
--Russ Hodges, October 3, 1951

On the 75th anniversary of "The Shot Heard Round the World," Don DeLillo reassembles in fiction the larger-than-life characters who on October 3, 1951, witnessed Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Jackie Gleason is razzing Toots Shor in Leo Durocher's box seats; J. Edgar Hoover, basking in Sinatra's celebrity, is about to be told that the Russians have tested an atomic bomb; and Russ Hodges, raw-throated and excitable, announces the game--the Giants and the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds in New York. DeLillo's transcendent account of one of the iconic events of the twentieth century is a masterpiece of American sportswriting.
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Customer reviews

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Malaika Taylor

I highly recommend to for anyone looking for inner clarity

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Great shopping experience! The book arrived quickly, was well packaged, and matched the description perfectly. I would definitely shop with you again

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