You Know Me Al - Softcover

Ring W Lardner, W Lardner; Ring W Lardner

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1594625670 ISBN 13: 9781594625671

Publisher: Book Jungle, 2007

Synopsis

First great success of Ring Lardner was ""You Know Me Al"", a fictional series of letters from a popular baseball hero to his friend, slowly revealing the hero as a semiliterate, crude, conceited, self-deceiving boob. This work was created while Lardner was writing a sports column for The Chicago Tribune, first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post. It was later published in the book form in 1916. You Know Me Al shows Lardner as a satirical master: a fine and misanthropic storyteller with a excellent feel for the niceties of characters and speech.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"You Know me Al" is a classic of baseball--the game and the community. Jack Keefe, one of literature's greatest characters, is talented, brash, and conceited. Self-assured and imperceptive, impervious to both advice and sarcasm, Keefe rises to the heights, but his inability to learn makes for his undoing. Through a series of letters from this bush-league pitcher to his not-quite-anonymous friend Al, Lardner maintains a balance between the funny and the moving, the pathetic and the glorious.

Nostalgic in its view of pre-World War I America--a time before the "live" ball, a time filled with names like Ty Cobb, Charles Comiskey, Walter Johnson, and Eddie Cicotte--this is not a simple period piece. It is about competition, about the ability to reason, and most of all it is about being human. First published in 1914, "You Know Me Al" says as much to us about ourselves today as it did seventy-five years ago.

About the Author

Ring Lardner (1885-1933) was one of the foremost journalists, humorists, and short-story writers of the 1910s and 1920s. He also became an esteemed playwright, composer, and lyricist in his later years. In J.D. Salinger's famous novel The Catcher in the Rye, the narrator Holden Caulfield says, "My favorite author is my brother D.B., and my next favorite is Ring Lardner."

Edition details

• Publisher: Book Jungle
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1594625670
• ISBN 13: 9781594625671
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 252