Faithful

Well, I’ve read my first Stephen King book. It’s not what you think. King and young author Stewart O’Nan collaborated on the book Faithful, a diary about their experiences watching the Red Sox during their historic World Series’ winning year of 2004.

The book is a lot like a baseball season, something you pick up and read nearly every night and weekend. It is too long and could have used some judicious editing, but amidst the trivia of replays of long forgotten regular season games against teams like Tampa Bay and Kansas City, there are gems of good writing and speculation on the nature of fandom, baseball and families. O’Nan is seriously devoted to baseball, driving in from Connecticut, cadging Red Sox tickets whenever possible and arriving hours before gametime so he can catch stray batting practice balls. When that fails, he catches area minor league games. King, living in both Florida and Maine, attends fewer games, but watches almost every game on cable and exhibits almost every superstition known to real fans.

For my money (a whopping $1 at Dollar Tree) the book was worth reading just for the description by Stephen King of taking his ailing 80 year-old mother-in-law to the fourth game of the AL Championship series against the Yankees. The game was the first Red Sox victory after three straight losses and ended with a dramatic David Ortiz walk-off home run. The 2004 Red Sox World Series victory was important to so many people because of the 86 year gap between championships. So many Red Sox fans lived their entire lives without seeing their team win.

Given the humor and intelligence exhibited by King in this book, I might try reading some of his traditional horror writing. I guess I should start with “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon”, since the named title character is a one-time Red Sox relief pitcher.