Perfect Silence - Softcover

Hutton, Jeff

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1891369342 ISBN 13: 9781891369346

Publisher: Breakaway Books, 2002

Synopsis

A novel of baseball and the Civil War, and a love story. Joseph Tyler is a baseball-loving Virginia farmboy swept into fighting for the Confederacy. Wounded and left for dead, he rises from the burning battlefield, rescues a dying Union soldier from the flames, and is captured. Sent to a foul Union prison in New York, he bears a letter for the dead soldier’s fiancée. He escapes from the prison with a dramatic sprint from center field during a baseball game. Sheltered by a kind widow, he waits until the war ends, and then finally delivers the letter. In a Hudson River town he starts playing semi-pro baseball, and meets and falls in love with the intended recipient of the -letter.

About this title

About the Author:

Jeff Hutton lives in Vernon, CT. Perfect Silence is his first novel.

From Publishers Weekly:

Hutton's amateurish but entertaining debut combines three of America's favorite topics. It starts as a historical tale about baseball, becomes a novel of the Civil War and ends up as an unlikely love story. Young Joseph Tyler spends the first three years of the War Between the States working with his father on their small Virginia farm. His only pastime there is a newly invented game called "Base," which his best friend Terence brought home from the North. Then the boys impetuously join John Pegram's Confederate brigade; in the confusing Battle of the Wilderness, Joseph is wounded and left for dead. Waking up in the burning woods, he discovers a mortally wounded Union soldier, in whose pocket is a letter to his sweetheart, Sarah Kingsley, of Rocker Falls, N.Y. Seized as a prisoner of war, Joseph is shipped off to prison in Elmira, N.Y., where he ingeniously uses his "base ball" expertise to escape. After the war is over, Joseph joins the Terryville (N.Y.) Niners, where he becomes the star player called "Rebel Joe." Just down the river from Terryville is Rocker Falls: what will happen when Joseph finds Sarah there? Readers of Frazier's Cold Mountain may see in it one inspiration for Hutton's plot and for his sometimes out-of-control prose. History buffs may admire Hutton's research, but they might also wince at errors: 1860s ballplayers (for example) didn't use gloves and didn't compute batting averages. If Hutton's prose and scholarship sometimes founder, his storytelling finally succeeds, producing delights for baseball and history fans, as well as a tender story of self-discovery.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Breakaway Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1891369342
• ISBN 13: 9781891369346
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320