The Ringer - Hardcover

Jenny Shank

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1579622143 ISBN 13: 9781579622145

Publisher: Permanent Press, 2011

Synopsis

Sidelined from coaching his sons' baseball team because he can't resist hollering at loafers, lollygaggers, and space cadets, Ed O'Fallon hopes focusing on his daughter's tee-ball team will calm his temper. But just as Ed prepares to guide the Purple Unicorns to their best season, his work as a Denver police officer changes his life forever. O'Fallon bursts into a home on a no-knock warrant, expecting to find drugs, but instead encounters a man pointing a gun. Ed kills Salvador Santillano, a Mexican immigrant he had more in common with than he could ever imagine. Worse, Ed learns his commanding officer made a grave mistake on the warrant that will force everyone in Denver to take sides.

Separated from her husband Salvador after their worst fight ever, Patricia Maestas discovers the police have killed him. Certain her husband never sold drugs, Patricia pushes to find out the truth behind the fatal raid, even while trying to keep her volatile, grieving son Ray from following a shady friend into a north-side gang.

But Ray isn't just any disaffected adolescent he's a left-handed pitching phenomenon who throws a blistering fastball. Patricia hopes enrolling him in a competitive league will keep him away from danger, but instead it puts them on a collision course with Ed, whose sons play in the same league on a rival team.

Ed and Patricia are unaware of the interconnections between them until a showdown at the regional tournament becomes inevitable, and their lives are forever altered.

About this title

About the Author:

Jenny Shank's stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in many publications, including The Onion, Bust, Prairie Schooner, Michigan Quarterly Review, Image, CutBank, Calyx, Sport Literate, Western American Literature, Rocky Mountain News, and Boulder Daily Camera. One of her stories was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and another was listed among the "Notable Essays of the Year" in the Best American Essays. She has won writing awards from the Center of the American West, the Montana Committee for the Humanities, SouthWest Writers, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Colorado. For six years she was the Denver/Boulder Editor of The Onion A.V. Club, and she is currently the Books & Writers Editor of NewWest.Net/Books. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband, daughter, and son.

From Publishers Weekly:

Shank debuts promisingly with the dramatic story of two families upended by an accidental police shooting. Denver police officer Ed O'Fallon is wracked with guilt after he guns down a man during a drug raid; Patricia Maestas, meanwhile, is instantly made a widow and single mother. Their narratives are equally engaging: as Ed's marriage buckles under the weight of his feelings of guilt, Patricia struggles to keep her 12-year-old son, Ray, out of trouble. What keeps Ray off the streets is baseball—the same sport Ed's sons are devoted to. When an investigation reveals the warrant for the fateful raid had the wrong address, Patricia and her family become a symbol of the wrongs suffered by the Latino community. The novel comes to a full boil after Patricia and Ed discover one another's identities through their sons' baseball teams. Though erratically paced and dependent on the hard-to-believe notion that patrol cop Ed would fill in on a SWAT bust, the narrative finds its groove later on and barrels toward a well-handled climax. (Mar.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Permanent Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1579622143
• ISBN 13: 9781579622145
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304