Pride of the Bimbos

by John Sayles

The Pride of the Bimbos is John Sayles's outrageous, poignant and hilarious first novel, about a circus sideshow softball team—The Brooklyn Bimbos—who play in drag at scraggly small towns across the South. The heart of the team—and the novel—is a midget and former private eye named Pogo Burns, who is pursued by Dred, an evil super-pimp whom Pogo had earlier shot in order to rescue a woman he loved. The Pride of the Bimbos is about Pogo's rise, fall and eventual immortality, a man who refuses to admit he's a freak.

Genres: Fiction, Baseball

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

John Thomas Sayles is an independent film director, screenwriter, novelist and short story writer who frequently plays small roles in his own and other indie films.

Reviews

[Bryan Whitehead · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Sayles serves up a southern gumbo of masculine pride. This soup includes sex, violence, sports (mostly softball) and many other aspects of blue-collar male self-image. And under Sayles’ skilled care, the result is actually as worth reading as it is easily read, neither too empty-headed nor too intellectual. The book’s main fault is that it seems in parts to be a self-conscious imitation of Flannery O’Connor, though perhaps Sayles should be praised for trying rather than scolded for falling a bit short of the mark. That aside, however, the work does feature a fair amount of the same dark parody, wit that could be both stinging and sympathetic at the same time, that characterized so much of O’Connor’s work. With little question this is the best book ever written about a little person shortstop for a cross-dressing, barnstorming softball team fleeing a killer pimp. That this is probably the only such book should not diminish the distinction.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

From its description, Pride of the Bimbos looks a lot like a nostalgic, pre-1940s period piece with a traveling softball team and plenty of diamond hijinks. That's not really the case, though that doesn't keep me from giving this a recommendation.

As is typical of filmmaker/novelist John Sayles, character and dialogue are front and center, and are the most enjoyable parts of this rather short novel, his first. Unexpectedly, it's a contemporary tale (1970s; that's when it was written). The Bimbos are a small team of men who travel the country playing softball in drag, usually at fairs and circus sideshows and the like. The team features a little person (oh, come on, he's a midget) named Pogo Burns who plays shortstop. It seems Burns is being pursued around the South by a large pimp named Dred who wants to find him and kill him as revenge for a shooting. That's the main plot thread, but Sayles fills out the story with peeks into the lives of lots of other folks, some only offhandedly related to the Bimbos and the folks in their orbit. If the black man stalking the shortstop stops to get some gas, you can be sure Sayles will involve us in the lives of the gas station employees. That's just what Sayles does, and it works well, for the most part; Pride of the Bimbos is both fun and funny, and sometimes poignant. But it's hard to build much momentum with all of these character-building asides. Especially in a book of only 250-plus pages, that's sometimes costly.

Pride of the Bimbos is an amusing tale that, with its off-center Americans, regional dialects and cutting, quaint humor, feels nostalgic, not modern. It's decidedly old-school, and I was expecting something set in the 1920s, an era Sayles visited in his baseball film Eight Men Out. And there's hardly any baseball (well, softball). I was thinking there would be some wild diamond chicanery with a bunch of guys dressed like dames running around. But, no, it wasn't exactly what I was thinking it was. But it is sharp and good, in a small way. You'll love some of the banter — it's priceless. The overall story? A seeing-eye single.

[Lawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as part of my Spring Training preparation for the 2023 season. One non fiction book read, this being the book of fiction. Pride of the Bimbos is about a traveling baseball team of players in drag something akin to a carnival side show. The book was more about the zany, esoteric characters with a little bit of noir thrown in. I'll be honest, it took me a bit of effort to finish as it was a little bit scattered. The flavor of the locals was what I liked best.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

I forced myself to finish this book because my book club planned to discuss it at a baseball game outing. I wish I had those hours of my life back, both from reading the book and watching the baseball game! At least the book club members are good company.

[Jim Hight · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Classic with Humor and Heart

Pride of the Bimbos should be considered an American classic. Hysterically funny, it's also rich and deep. Sayles renders each character with sympathy and appreciation, giving readers many occasions to smile and laugh knowingly at their longings, disappointments, pretensions, and gifts.

Sayles also takes us on a bracing journey through the American South just a few years after the Civil Rights movement. His black character—the Chicago gangster Dred—inspires fear and wonder from blacks and whites as he cruises the backroads to seek vengeance on one of the Bimbos. And he gets pranked by racist good old boys in a way that Jordan Peele would explore 40 years later in the movie Get Out.

I grieved when I finished this book.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have loved Sayles' films and had not known he also wrote novels. Pride is a rambling book about baseball and broken dreams. It gradually builds and took me by surprise how much it moved me, minor and major characters so well developed and finally a great ending.

[Adam Fleming · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe not a four star book, but a fun beach read. Hammered through most of it in one weekend. I admit it: I bought this book because the cover font was Brothers (the same font we used for my novel, White Buffalo Gold) and because it had a baseball on the cover.
It was a quick fun read about a freak show. If you like books about circus people this is the book for you. It's heavier on circus and light on baseball, but here's the thing: baseball is a backdrop that always says something about America.

[Josh Hornbeck · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Sayles's debut novel, "Pride of the Bimbos," tells the captivating story of a sideshow softball team who play in drag along the carnival circuit. It's a story of broken dreams and wounded masculinity, the fragility of male pride. Just like his cinematic work, Sayles is a generous artist, giving ample time for antagonist and protagonist alike, letting us enter the lives of even his minor characters. At times his prose gets a little too flashy for its own good, sacrificing clarity for style, but it's a minor quibble in a work of such thoughtful empathy.

[Seamus Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid first novel with many masterful touches. As always, Sayles has a great ear for dialogue and a knack for switching perspectives, showing his protagonists through the eyes of walk-on characters. In this case, I thought he might have spent a little more time familiarizing the reader with his cast of regulars before changing lenses . . . but I still enjoyed the lazy, flowing pace of this first effort very much.

[Michael Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book somehow got mixed into those I was checking out at the library... and was I surprised at this find! It was a wonderful quirky, yet sad and poignant, tale of many different perspectives. Sayles presented so many characters from one chapter to the next that it would be easy to become overwhelmed, but looking back it was those very presentations that made each scene and each bit of dialogue so "real".

[Timothy Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best sports books ever written, and besides being a triumphant delight, all the more amazing for how young John Sayles was when he wrote it. If nothing else in the literary canon would prove what I thought all along, that John Sayles is as much the reincarnation of Ring Lardner as Kurt Vonnegut is of Mark Twain, this book will convince the doubtful. On the whole, one of our great American comic novels.

[catharine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this was a book about baseball, but pleasingly, it was not.

This is a book of very well written character sketches of people, intended to shock with its coarseness. There were some very real poignant moments, but overall I was disappointed.

[Steverman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this so very long ago; I think it was published by Little, Brown so my girl friend might have been to book designer. I just know it was outrageously funny, and I went around singing 'The Winos National Anthem for months afterward. Great debut book by a man who became a great movie director.