Shoeless Joe (Book)

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Shoeless Joe is a fantasy novel by W. P. Kinsella. It became much better known because of its film adaptation, Field of Dreams.

Plot introduction

Explanation of the novel's title

The book's namesake is Shoeless Joe Jackson. Jackson played Left Field for the Chicago White Sox, and was controversially banned from Major League Baseball after being accused in the Black Sox scandal, which was the "fixing" of the 1919 World Series.

Plot summary

Ray Kinsella is a farmer in Iowa who starts hearing voices telling him to build a baseball field in the middle of his corn field. When he does, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson appears to play on the field and brings other baseball players from the past. Two of the main ones are "Moonlight" Archibald Graham, who only got one at bat in the majors and Eddie Scissons, the oldest living Chicago Cub. In addition to all of this, Ray "kidnaps" J D Sallinger.

Characters in Shoeless Joe

• Ray Kinsella
• Richard Kinsella, identical twin brother of Ray
• Anne Kinsella, wife of Ray
• Karin Kinsella, daughter of Ray and Annie
• Mark, Ray's brother-in-law
• Eddie Scissons, who originally owned Ray's farm and claimed to be the oldest living Chicago Cub
• J. D. Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye
• Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, a baseball player who never had a chance at bat in the majors, who then later became a doctor
• Shoeless Joe Jackson, a baseball player who was accused of being paid to throw a game

Major themes

• Redemption
• Father-and-son bond
• Dreams
• Unexplained magic
• New-found life

Allusions/references to other works

Allusions/references from other works

• J. D. Salinger: Catcher in the Rye
• J. D. Salinger: A Young Girl In 1941 With No Waist At All

Allusions/references to actual history and current science

The character Moonlight Graham was a real baseball player, whom the author found while looking through The Baseball Encyclopedia. The background of the character is based on his true life, with a few factual liberties taken for artistic reasons.

Awards and nominations

Shoeless Joe is the winner of the 1983 Books in Canada First Novel Award and a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship.

Film or TV adaptations

Shoeless Joe was later adapted into a screenplay for the film Field of Dreams by Phil Alden Robinson.

Trivia

• The working title of the book was Dream Field, but the publisher renamed the work Shoeless Joe.

Release details

• 1982, United States of America, Houghton Mifflin ISBN 039532047X, Pub date April 12 1982, (Paperback?)
• 1999, United States of America, Mariner Books ISBN 0395957737, Pub date April 28 1999, Paperback

Sources, references, external links, quotations

 

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