The Essential W. P. Kinsella

I will be forever grateful to W.P. Kinsella even if he never publishes another word because he is responsible for one of my favorite books of all time, Shoeless Joe. That novel, of course, subsequently morphed into what is one of my favorite movies: Field of Dreams. And now, thanks to the remarkable new collection of Kinsella's short stories (published in celebration of the author's approaching eightieth birthday), The Essential W.P. Kinsella, I have finally read the short story that started it all, "Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa."

In addition to being a very fine novelist, W.P. Kinsella is a prolific short story writer with something like two hundred stories to his credit. In the U.S., he is probably best known for his baseball stories, but in Canada he is perhaps better known for his First Nation stories set on the Hobbema Indian Reservation. The reservation stories feature a continuing cast of diverse characters through which Kinsella takes satirical pokes at life on the reservation, the Canadian government, and the general attitude of the white population toward Canada's native population. Those stories, funny as they usually are, often leave the reader pondering a serious point or two about life.

But Kinsella is also the author of what, for lack of a better term, I will call standalone stories, stories that have nothing to do with baseball or with Indians. It is one of these standalones, in fact, that is my favorite of the entire collection, a story titled "The Last Surviving Member of the Japanese Victory Society." It tells of a divorced man who falls in love with the Japanese woman who owns the plant and garden nursery he frequents. It is the story of two people who are determined to be together despite a major obstacle to their relationship: the Japanese woman's mother, who is determined to have nothing to do with "the devil" who has come to take her daughter from her. “The Last Surviving Member of the Japanese Victory Society” has such a feel of honesty and frankness about it that I almost immediately began to suspect that it is a very personal one to its author - a suspicion, in fact, confirmed by the touching dedication that follows the story's final words. Simply put, this is a beautiful story.
The author himself had a hand in choosing stories for The Essential W.P. Kinsella, and fans of his baseball stories and First Nation stories will be pleased with the number of each type chosen for inclusion. The baseball stories may magically touch on tragic figures such as Roberto Clemente and Thurman Munson, but the tales spend just as much time in the low minors with players who are unlikely ever even to sniff life in Triple A ball, much less the majors. The Indian stories portray the unexpected humor of life on the reservation - humor that is often more of the "sometimes you have to laugh so you don't cry" variety, than not. There are likely to be surprises for everyone in The Essential W.P. Kinsella. But those who know Kinsella's work only from his baseball stories are going to get the biggest and best surprise of all.

The author himself had a hand in choosing stories for The Essential W.P. Kinsella, and fans of his baseball stories and First Nation stories will be pleased with the number of each type chosen for inclusion. The baseball stories may magically touch on tragic figures such as Roberto Clemente and Thurman Munson, but the tales spend just as much time in the low minors with players who are unlikely ever even to sniff life in Triple A ball, much less the majors. The Indian stories portray the unexpected humor of life on the reservation - humor that is often more of the "sometimes you have to laugh so you don't cry" variety, than not. There are likely to be surprises for everyone in The Essential W.P. Kinsella. But those who know Kinsella's work only from his baseball stories are going to get the biggest and best surprise of all.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Kinsella...and thank you.

W. P. Kinsella is utterly transporting, no matter if you've read his works fifty times or are lucky to just be discovering him through this wealth of storytelling.

This book will be an essential part of my personal book collection. I fell in love with WP Kinsella in college when I had the extreme honor of meeting him after reading "Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa." His writing is timeless, and this collection is as well.

A great introduction to a gifted writer! This will leave you wanting much more.

The Essential W. P. Kinsella has been out for several months now, so this review is coming a bit late, but I wanted to draw attention to this marvelous compendium. If you have joint passions for baseball and reading, you most likely know of Kinsella's work. If the name doesn't ring a bell, think Field of Dreams. That heartwarming combination of baseball, mysticism, and literary journey was based on Kinsella's novel of the same title.

I'd read all of Kinsella's novels, but somehow hadn't realized that he was also a prolific writer of short stories. The genre is perfect for his kind of writing: startling, original, entertaining, combining real world elements (baseball, Indian life in Iowa and Canada) with fantasy. I don't know where he gets his ideas—but they translate into wonderful stories that can easily bear multiple readings.

In "Searching for January," a 1980s U.S. baseball fan vacationing in Central America is startled to meet Roberto Clemete who's just appeared from out of the ocean fog on a rubber life raft. In "How I Got My Nickname," we learn how W. P. Kinsella (yes, he frequently appears in his own stories) ensures that Bobby Thompson has a chance to hit "the shot heard round the world." These are the kinds of tales Kinsella excells at, and—with his fecund imagination—that never feel stale, regardless of how many of his other works you've read.

If you're looking for a substantial volume of summer reading that you can pick up at will—and that celebrates the delight that is summer baseball—you'll want to spend a good bit of time with W. P. Kinsella.

This is a book with about 36 short stories from W.P. Kinsella. Some of them are familiar some not, but all are very good and it gives you a look into his work and how his story was made into the movie Field of Dreams. He also wrote a book about the Black scandal, and he was someone you could tell enjoyed watching Shoeless Joe Jackson. He helped bring baseball to many people through words and here are short stories where you can see his early beginnings, but also his love of the game. A good book.