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Swing
Unknown Binding
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About the author
Philip Beard
7 books37 followersPhilip Beard is a recovering attorney and award-winning author of Dear Zoe, which was a Book Sense Pick, a Borders Original Voices selection, and was named by the American Library Association's "Booklist" as one of its Ten Best First Novels of the year. It has enjoyed a second life being taught in high school classrooms across the country and is currently being developed as a feature film. His latest novel, Swing, centered around an unlikely friendship between a 10 year-old boy and a legless Korean War veteran, recently received the 2016 IPPY Gold Medal for Contemporary Fiction.
Praise for Swing:
"Philip Beard's SWING is a novel to be savored"
- Sara Gruen, New York Times Bestselling author of Water for Elephants
“…at once heartbreaking, uplifting and emotionally resonant. In a word, it’s beautiful."
-Pittsburgh Magazine
"SWING is richly rewarding...a tight, poignant coming of age novel...[that] will stay with you long after you put this book down." –Sports Illustrated
“It wouldn’t be fair or accurate to call SWING a sports book. It’s too rare for that.”
–The Sporting News
“Every character—the absent father, the troubled sister, the mysterious wonder that is John Kostka—feels alive due to Beard‘s skillfully simple prose and dialogue. With SWING, Beard has hit it out of the park.”
–Foreword Reviews
“...just about perfect.”
-The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Praise for Dear Zoe,
“Like The Lovely Bones, it is a piercing look at how a family recovers from a devastating loss. Everything about this moving, powerful debut rings true.”
– Booklist (starred review)
“Dear Zoe is an almost flawless novel of self-discovery and redemption. It is the sort of book that a generation can call ‘theirs,’ a book that captures the trials of adolescence and the aching numbness of America in the aftermath of 9/11.”
– The Press of Atlantic City
“The whole novel rings with truth. By the end of it, we’re meditating on the ideas of loss and redemption, the ways in which personal tragedies get absorbed into larger ones, but never
obliterated, never forgotten.”
– The Buffalo News
Praise for Swing:
"Philip Beard's SWING is a novel to be savored"
- Sara Gruen, New York Times Bestselling author of Water for Elephants
“…at once heartbreaking, uplifting and emotionally resonant. In a word, it’s beautiful."
-Pittsburgh Magazine
"SWING is richly rewarding...a tight, poignant coming of age novel...[that] will stay with you long after you put this book down." –Sports Illustrated
“It wouldn’t be fair or accurate to call SWING a sports book. It’s too rare for that.”
–The Sporting News
“Every character—the absent father, the troubled sister, the mysterious wonder that is John Kostka—feels alive due to Beard‘s skillfully simple prose and dialogue. With SWING, Beard has hit it out of the park.”
–Foreword Reviews
“...just about perfect.”
-The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Praise for Dear Zoe,
“Like The Lovely Bones, it is a piercing look at how a family recovers from a devastating loss. Everything about this moving, powerful debut rings true.”
– Booklist (starred review)
“Dear Zoe is an almost flawless novel of self-discovery and redemption. It is the sort of book that a generation can call ‘theirs,’ a book that captures the trials of adolescence and the aching numbness of America in the aftermath of 9/11.”
– The Press of Atlantic City
“The whole novel rings with truth. By the end of it, we’re meditating on the ideas of loss and redemption, the ways in which personal tragedies get absorbed into larger ones, but never
obliterated, never forgotten.”
– The Buffalo News
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 13, 2016
Henry, an eleven-year old boy, sneaks off to a Pittsburgh Pirates game after his baseball loving father, a professor, abruptly abandons his family for an ex-student. Looking lost at a bus stop, he is befriended by an amputee with no legs. Most in that situation would be resigned to life in a wheelchair but not John Kostka. With strengthened arms used like crutches to lift and SWING his body, he moves confidently in the world of the walking and provides a stabilizing force for Henry.
It turns out the Swinger is merely an appetizer before the main course. He whets the appetite until you are led into the full impact of the story which is an exploration of how the family breakup affects Henry and his younger sister Ruthie, not just during their youth but also into their adult lives. In each chapter the story bounces between the two generations, expanding on each family life in parallel.
As the story comes full circle to John’s memorial (mentioned at the outset), we can better understand the role he played in Henry and Ruthie’s lives. And we gain an appreciation of how varied and lasting are the effects of a family breakup.
Philip Beard is a keen observer of human behavior and the details that make up life events. His prose is very readable yet colorful in descriptions and rich in the subtleties, foibles and fantasies that we all experience at one time or another. Swing is a masterful novel that led me from interest to intrigue and soon had me fully engrossed. I couldn’t put it down and when it ended, didn’t want to put it down. It deserves a wide audience and a long life.
It turns out the Swinger is merely an appetizer before the main course. He whets the appetite until you are led into the full impact of the story which is an exploration of how the family breakup affects Henry and his younger sister Ruthie, not just during their youth but also into their adult lives. In each chapter the story bounces between the two generations, expanding on each family life in parallel.
As the story comes full circle to John’s memorial (mentioned at the outset), we can better understand the role he played in Henry and Ruthie’s lives. And we gain an appreciation of how varied and lasting are the effects of a family breakup.
Philip Beard is a keen observer of human behavior and the details that make up life events. His prose is very readable yet colorful in descriptions and rich in the subtleties, foibles and fantasies that we all experience at one time or another. Swing is a masterful novel that led me from interest to intrigue and soon had me fully engrossed. I couldn’t put it down and when it ended, didn’t want to put it down. It deserves a wide audience and a long life.
Displaying 1 of 1 review