The Powers: A Novel

by Valerie Sayers

1941 is a year of drama and spectacle for Americans. Joe DiMaggio’s record-breaking hitting streak enlivens the summer, and winter begins with the shock and horror of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The news from Eu­rope is bleak, especially for the Jewish population. Joltin’ Joe, possessing a sweet swing and range in center, also has another gift: he can see the future. And he sees dark times ahead. 


In her inventive novel The Powers, Valerie Sayers, in both realistic and fantastic chapters, transports the reader to an age filled with giants: Dorothy Day and Walker Ev­ans appear beside DiMaggio. The problems they face, from Catholic antisemitism to the challenge of pacifism in the face of overwhelming evil, play out in very public media, among them the photography of Evans and the baseball of DiMaggio. At once magical and familiar, The Powers is a story of witness and moral responsibility that will, like Joe DiMaggio, find some unlikely fans.

Genres: Baseball, World War II

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Valerie Sayers was born and raised in Beaufort, South Carolina, which became the thinly disguised Due East of her fiction, and educated in New York, where she lived for many years. She is the author of a collection of stories, The Age of Infidelity, and six novels: The Powers; Brain Fever and Who Do You Love, which were named "Notable Books of the Year" by the New York Times; Due East, which also appeared in five foreign editions; and How I Got Him Back. A film based on her first two books, Due East, premiered on Showtime, and she has published many stories, essays, and reviews. Her literary awards include a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship and a Pushcart Prize. She is Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, where her students keep her hopping and experimenting with new ideas and new forms.

Reviews

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty tough & beautiful, and I liked the manner in which it ended. It was also not at all what I thought it would be - I didn't read much about it beforehand, so I don't remember what my expectations were based on, but it quickly turned into something I wasn't expecting, with the use of old black and white, not-entirely-on-point photos (as in, the photos were sometimes almost separate from the story; having their own life), and the shifting of focus away from one Joe Dimaggio to a number of other characters.

I had a tough time with it but eventually came to enjoy it. I read it more quickly than I probably should have, so I also relished that sense of cruising along plot-wise while feeling like there was always some deeper truths and meanings and things going on beneath the surface level I was at. It's always good to sense a little more mystery.

Anyway, pretty good read, and now I'm looking forward to hearing Sayers talk at Calvin's Festival of Faith and Writing in 2014.

[Jack Swanzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

grossly under-rated, a well told story, until the end. A story of Joe DiMaggio, his greatest fan (Babe) and Agnes, Babe's coming-of-age granddaughter.

[Jim Willse · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been almost 20 years since Sayers's last novel. I've always liked her Due East novels, and since her last she's become a respected professor at Notre Dame. The themes are still independent young women finding their way through thickets of difficult relatives, young love and the Catholic Church. She sometimes writes beautifully, as in this riff ...

".... She doesn't know if she is standing or sitting or falling head over heels onto the miniature toy diamond at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, borough of Jews and coloreds, borough of the aged, the infirm, and the lonely, borough of weeping young mothers. Borough of the slippery, the nefarious, the smug, the wicked. Borough of the bewitched and the smitten, borough of Pete Reiser and Pee Wee Reese, borough of the living, the dead, the haunted. Borough of those who wait for war to begin, for the Dodgers to win. Borough of those who float, as Babe O'Leary does now, in some mist that cannot decide whether to settle in one world or the next."

[Aaron Lozano · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was a fun read, with four start potential. 2 big things kept it out of the 4th star for me. 1- Lack of resolution, I felt like there was more to be told and I was left hanging. 2- and most important for me, "third plate." If Babe was such a die hard baseball fan, she would certainly not have ever referred to third base as "third plate." A likely typo, but left a sour taste in my mouth for the final 40 pages or so.

[Jonathan Singer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a realistic tale of a love triangle—or square, if you count an overbearing grandmother—in getting ready for WWII New York City, interspersed with a fantasy telling of Joe DiMaggio during his hitting streak. The writing is first-rate—descriptive and varied without being too cloying, and the story flows. There isn’t much of a plot, something that is the bane of my life in reading modern novels, as the novel mostly focuses on the ins and outs of the four main characters lives during that interregnum period, when America was/wasn’t at war. A very realistic portrayal of that era and a worthy read. I will hopefully pick up another of this author’s work and see if there is more to the next one (plot wise), but this was short enough — a ready to be marketed 296 pages—such that I could just enjoy the quality writing without being too bothered by the lack of overall tension in the novel. A good read, which is about all I ask for these days.

[Christina Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written novel. I stopped repeatedly to re-read passages that just flowed so eloquently they deserved a second look. I found the characters wholly believable - and I appreciated the portrayal of Dorothy Day from the perspective of an intimidated would-be Catholic worker especially.
I've probably spent too much time in the middle-grade fiction section lately, because I found it moved a little slowly. But it is more of a character study than an action novel, so that comes more from my preferences than from the quality of Sayers's work.
Overall I did enjoy The Powers, for its realness, its sense of the ugly-beautiful, and the genuine struggles the characters battled through.

[Tupelodan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off pretty fast, but bogged down toward the end. Still, I’m glad I read it.

[EddieJoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sayers's hyperactive mind is a complete joy to experience. This book is a humorous, historical romp with sections so rich and dense, so inhabited by the book's central concerns, that to sit for a few minutes in front of its pages is similar to entering a portal to a 1940s New York so thoroughly drawn that its sights, sounds, smells, streets and people will leave you wheeling and giddy.

The characters come onto the page fully wrought. The lives chronicled here are made interesting by the author's big heart, by her love for fiction's ability to create real people with real dreams and desires. Here is simply great storytelling, intriguing characters, and masterful language. Sayers is a true pro.

[Lauren Glowacky · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a different book. The characters were a bit strange, it was set during the late 30s, early 40s in New York. You had a Yankees/Joe DiMaggio obsessed grandmother, and one of her granddaughters, Agnes, who was the main character was very mixed up. She couldn't choose between 2 boys that she liked, (the boys were both strange characters also)... she had a photography obsession with corpses (her grandfather was an undertaker)...I have never seen a character as weird as her.

[Bbrux · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story conveys a excellent sense of being on the cusp. And the way Agnes waffles seems very true to life. I'm not sure why the joe DiMaggio line but I did enjoy it. Each character makes certainty out of uncertainty in a different way

[Robin Underdahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rare to read someone so clever.

[Leah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was supposed to read this the summer before freshman year, and I could not finish it.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story gave me a new perspective on baseball.