''We're losing. Can't you see? Do you think Gehrig and Waddell and McGinnity and Jennings couldn't hit if they wanted to? . . . They want the living to win. Even the umpire wants the living to win. They remember how it was. All the pain, all the trouble - they'd choose it again - they'd go extra innings into infinity for the chance to be alive again.''
Plot: Boy hits baseball, ball hits girl in head, causes her to become crippled. Boy feels guilty (girl is unaware of who hit ball), visits girl, they fall in love. Boy goes off to war. Time passes. Boy's ship is sunk, he is alone in Pacific on raft. Death visits. Makes deal. Baseball game back home for soul vs. life.
Why read it?: I was a bit skimpy on the plot - this a fairly short book but full of life. Magical realism meets sports novel. There a few books that are able to bring in such various pieces and have them all work together. Angels and God, weird families and their pets, baseball, small town America. A unique book.
I read this book as a graduate student in Virginia back when it first came out in the 1980's (I searched around for a photo of the cover from the edition I had. I'm sadly not sure what happened to my copy). I had assumed it was long out of print, which apparently it was for many years, but now it has been reprinted. I don't think it was a particularly big seller and isn't likely become one now, but it is an inspired piece of mystical writing about baseball, love, fate, and faith.
This all takes place around WWII. The hero, Ben, playing with friends one evening, hits a baseball that travels beyond the playing field and hits a young girl, Clare in the head, leaving her unable to walk. Clare is unaware of who hit her with the ball, Ben is not. Despite being advised against it by his morally challenged brother Willie, Ben strikes up a friendship with Clare out of guilt, and the two eventually fall in love. There's a lot more going on here - Ben's relationship with his twin brother, which dates back to before they were born, as well as Clare's eccentric family and her ability to see the future in a hazy sort of way.
The book then quickly shifts forward to a raft floating somewhere in the Pacific during the war. Ben's Navy ship has sank, and he is the lone survivor, adrift with no food or water. He is not, however, alone on the raft. Death is with him, and Death, not adverse to wagers, agrees to a baseball game with Ben and his friends back home. What ensues is literally a baseball game for the ages, and for life. Its hard to not compare this to Field of Dreams, but I won't, other than to say that there are some similarities, but mainly on the surface. Things Invisible to See is magical realism mixed with middle America at its most conventional. The ending is truly original and reminds us that sometimes the best things are just meant to happen and nothing can get in the way of that.
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