Synopses & Reviews
“Meissner has the storyteller’s gift for creative living characters, living speech, living emotions, living drama. He knows his small town baseball, but beyond that, he knows the human spirit.” —
Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried “In
Spirits in the Grass, Meissner explores the hidden heart of America’s Midwest—scratching hard at his character’s dreams to release their nightmares, their truths. His words are supple as grass, his language a graceful dance that is a pure joy to read.” —
Susan Power, author of The Grass Dancer “This novel is a rare achievement, an extraordinary story of a man’s desire to resurrect his past, to redeem and restore the world he knew as a boy, while he confronts the crimes around him. Juxtaposing baseball, Native American history and religion, and small town life, Meissner has created a genuine original.” —
Jonis Agee, University of Nebraska, author of South of Resurrection and The River Wife “Bill Meissner’s
Spirits in the Grass is nothing short of stunning, his mastery of the prose is evident in virtually every sentence as it intensifies and heightens the intrigue of the wonderful story being told. This is a vibrant and original novel, a triumph, and Meissner’s linguistic veracity places him among the finest prose stylists writing today.” —
Jack Driscoll, author of How Like an Angel In
Spirits in the Grass we meet Luke Tanner, a thirty-something baseball player helping to build a new baseball field in his beloved hometown of Clearwater, Wisconsin. Luke looks forward to trying out for the local amateur team as soon as possible. His chance discovery of a small bone fragment on the field sets in motion a series of events and discoveries that will involve his neighbors, local politicians, and the nearby Native American reservation. Luke’s life, most of all, will be transformed. His growing obsession with the ball field and what’s beneath it threatens his still fragile relationship with his partner, Louise, and challenges Luke’s assumptions about everyone, especially himself.
Review
“In Spirits in the Grass [Meissner] has linked personal and racial history and identity, intimate drama and outright mystery, and the awakening of romance and self-awareness. That's a lot to bring together. . . . But while the mayor flails around . . . and Luke learns something about himself, and the town of Clearwater comes to terms with its shady past and uncertain future, the spirits in the grass rise and assemble, murmuring a truth impervious to villainy, easy psychological insight, and cliché.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
Review
“An accomplished literary writer crafts a resonant Midwest baseball novel centering on the drama that results when work building a baseball field in a small Wisconsin town uncovers evidence of the area’s Native American past. Luke Tanner, longtime baseball player who makes the discovery, finds his life altered. Meissner has a gift for creating real people on the page.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Review
“Novels about baseball or small-town life often fall prey to a too-easy sentimentality and a tendency toward soft-focus prose. Meissner tackles both these topics but, remarkably, avoids both flaws. Luke is a thirtysomething dreamer living a desultory life in a small Wisconsin town and wishing his high-school baseball career hadn’t ended. Now he’s helping build a new ball field and hoping to get a second chance in a local amateur league. But when he finds bone shards in the turf, it appears that the field may be a Native American burial ground; caught between representatives of the local Indian tribe, who want to purify the ground, and the town’s mayor, who wants to protect his plans for a new highway, Luke sees his dream fading yet again. Meanwhile, his girlfriend, Louise, is fed up with the town and with Luke’s inability to keep his mind out of the ‘dream-smeared sky.’ Meissner handles all his story lines—the centerfielder manqué, the ‘spirits in the grass,’ the troubled romance, the fight with city hall—with admirable subtlety, sidestepping the multiple clichés that can so easily attach themselves to all of these themes. This is a quiet novel but an emotionally powerful one, rich with ambiguity and with the scent of felt life.” — starred review in Booklist
Review
“Spirits in the Grass delves into the cultural tension between Native Americans and Caucasians and seeks to expose the ugliness of racism and the violent aftermath such racial hatred can leave in its wake. Meissner's creativity with words delights the senses and brings to life the book's small-town, Midwestern setting.” —Minnesota Literature Newsletter
Synopsis
"Meissner has the storyteller's gift for creative living characters, living speech, living emotions, living drama. He knows his small town baseball, but beyond that, he knows the human spirit." --Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried "In Spirits in the Grass, Meissner explores the hidden heart of America's Midwest--scratching hard at his character's dreams to release their nightmares, their truths. His words are supple as grass, his language a graceful dance that is a pure joy to read." --Susan Power, author of The Grass Dancer "This novel is a rare achievement, an extraordinary story of a man's desire to resurrect his past, to redeem and restore the world he knew as a boy, while he confronts the crimes around him. Juxtaposing baseball, Native American history and religion, and small town life, Meissner has created a genuine original." --Jonis Agee, University of Nebraska, author of South of Resurrection and The River Wife "Bill Meissner's Spirits in the Grass is nothing short of stunning, his mastery of the prose is evident in virtually every sentence as it intensifies and heightens the intrigue of the wonderful story being told. This is a vibrant and original novel, a triumph, and Meissner's linguistic veracity places him among the finest prose stylists writing today." --Jack Driscoll, author of How Like an Angel In Spirits in the Grasswe meet Luke Tanner, a thirty-something baseball player helping to build a new baseball field in his beloved hometown of Clearwater, Wisconsin. Luke looks forward to trying out for the local amateur team as soon as possible. His chance discovery of a small bone fragment on the field sets in motion a series of events and discoveries that will involve his neighbors, local politicians, and the nearby Native American reservation. Luke's life, most of all, will be transformed. His growing obsession with the ball field and what's beneath it threatens his still fragile relationship with his partner, Louise, and challenges Luke's assumptions about everyone, especially himself.
Synopsis
When Bill Meissner's collection of short stories Hitting into the Wind was published in 1994, it was called "a quiet masterpiece of baseball writing" by the Greensboro, North Carolina, News and Record. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer said, "Bill Meissner captures baseball with all its crystalline beauty--the remarkable reverberation of time and space and character." And The New York Times Book Review said, "Just about every tale here recalls those precious years when a chance to play in the majors was all a boy could ask from life." Now, in his first novel, Bill Meissner again uses baseball as a window to his characters. In Spirits in the Grass, we meet Luke Tanner, a thirty-something ball player helping to build a new baseball field in his beloved hometown of Clearwater, Wisconsin. Luke looks forward to trying out for the local amateur team as soon as possible. His chance discovery of a small bone fragment on the field sets in motion a series of events and discoveries that will involve his neighbors, local politicians, and the nearby Native American reservation. Luke's life, most of all, will be transformed. His growing obsession with the ball field and what's beneath it threatens his still fragile relationship with his partner, Louise, and challenges Luke's assumptions about everyone, especially himself. Spirits in the Grass rings true with small-town Midwestern values. The characters, including Luke's independent partner Louise, grapple with their passion and their identities. In this beautiful and haunting novel, baseball serves as a metaphor for life itself, with its losses and defeats, its glories and triumphs.
About the Author
Bill Meissner has won numerous awards for his writing, including PEN/NEA Syndicated Fiction Awards. He is the author of two previous books of fiction, Hitting into the Wind and The Road to Cosmos (University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), and four books of poetry, including American Compass (University of Notre Dame Press, 2004). He is Director of Creative Writing at St. Cloud State University.