I mentioned that John Grisham’s newest book, Calico Joe, is a baseball novel. Some people say it’s so short that it borders between being a novel and a novella. I looked at it at Barnes & Noble last Friday, and it appeared a normal length book. Perhaps it had big font, big margins, and thick paper.

Since I was about to shift back to working on my baseball novel, In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, I’m interested in Grisham’s book. I read the first paragraph, but haven’t bought it yet. I read a bunch of reviews on Amazon.com and Goodreads, including the spoilers, so I have a pretty good idea of the plot. What is uncanny is how similar our two books are. Here are some points of similarity.

• In CJ, Joe Castle is a rookie who breaks into the Big Leagues with the Chicago Cubs, does great things his rookie year, and leads the Cubs on a quest for elusive greatness. In FTSP, Ronny Thompson is a rookie who breaks into the Big Leagues with the Chicago Cubs, does great things his rookie year, and leads the Cubs on a quest for elusive greatness.
• Joe Castle is from small-town, rural Arkansas. Ronny Thompson is from small-town, rural Kansas.
• Another CJ baseball character, Warren Tracy, has a non-baseball son with whom he is estranged. Ronny Thompson is estranged from his non-baseball father.
• CJ is as much about off-the-field action as it is on-the-field. Same is true for FTSP.
• In CJ the main team against the Chicago Cubs is the New York Mets. In FTSP the main team against the Cubs is the New York Yankees.
• Reviewers say there’s enough baseball action in CJ to satisfy baseball fans but not so much as to totally turn non-fans off, although that is far from a universal review. In FTSP I’m hoping I’ve struck the right balance of baseball talk with non-baseball talk to keep both groups happy. So far my beta readers seem to agree.

All of which tells me I’ve got to get this novel finished and get it out there, see if I can piggyback on Grisham. More about that in the next post.