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Henry Wiggen #4
It Looked Like For Ever
Henry Wiggen, the bedraggled six-foot-three, 195-pound, left-handed pitcher for the New York Mammoths, returns to narrate another novel in his inimitable manner. Fans who loved him in Bang the Drum Slowly, The Southpaw, and A Ticket for a Seamstitch (all Bison Books) will cheer his comeback. Wiggen is now thirty-nine, a fading veteran with a floating fastball, a finicky prostate, and other intimations of mortality. Released from the Mammoths after nineteen years, the twenty-seventh winningest pitcher in baseball history (tied at 247 victories with Joseph J. "Iron Man" McGinnity and John Powell), Wiggen is not ready to hang up his glove. What impels Henry to pitch against Pate, to trek to California and as far as Japan? He still has a few seasons, a few innings left anyway. Is he principled or possessed? You'll have to decide for yourself as author Mark Harris plays out Wiggen's midlife crisis on familiar American turf: the baseball diamond.
276 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
108 people want to read
About the author
Mark Harris
245 books25 followersHarris was born Mark Harris Finkelstein in Mount Vernon, New York, to Carlyle and Ruth (Klausner) Finkelstein. At the age of 11, he began keeping a diary, which he would maintain for every day of his life thereafter.
After graduating in 1940 from Mount Vernon High School, he dropped his surname because "it was a difficult time for kids with Jewish names to get jobs." He subsequently went to work for Paul Winkler's Press Alliance news agency in New York City as a messenger and mimeograph operator.
He was drafted into the United States Army in January 1943. His growing opposition to war and his anger at the prevalence of racial discrimination in the Army led him to go AWOL from Camp Wheeler, Georgia, in February 1944. He was soon arrested and then hospitalized for psychoneurosis. He was honorably discharged in April 1944. His wartime experience formed the basis for two of his novels, Trumpet to the World (1946) and Something About a Soldier (1957).
Harris joined The Daily Item of Port Chester, New York, as a reporter in May 1944. A year later he accepted a position with PM in New York City but was fired after two months. In July 1945 he was hired by the International News Service and moved to St. Louis. While there, he met coworker Josephine Horen, whom he would marry in March 1946. After resigning in July 1946, he spent the next year and a half in a succession of short-lived journalism jobs in Albuquerque, New Mexico (Albuquerque Journal), Chicago (Negro Digest and Ebony), and New York (Park Row News Service).
In February 1948, Harris abandoned journalism to enroll in the University of Denver, from which he received a Master's degree in English in 1951 as well as obtaining a PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota in 1956.
In September 1956, he was hired by the English department of San Francisco State College, where he taught until 1967. He went on to teach at several other universities, including Purdue, California Institute of the Arts, the University of Southern California, and the University of Pittsburgh. In September 1980, he joined the faculty of Arizona State, where he was a professor of English and taught in the creative writing program until his retirement in 2001.
His first novel, Trumpet to the World, is the story of a young black soldier married to a white woman who is put on trial for striking back at a white officer, was published in 1946, and he continued to produce novels and contribute to periodicals through the years. In 1960, while in his first college teaching position, Harris promoted his then-most-recent book in a TV appearance as guest contestant in "You Bet Your Life", a game played on The Groucho Show.
In January 1962, Something About a Soldier, a stage version of Harris's novel, played briefly on Broadway. Written by Ernest Kinoy and produced by the Theatre Guild, it featured Sal Mineo in the lead role. Later, the novel Bang the Drum Slowly was adapted into a stage play at the Next Theatre in Evanston, Illinois.
Harris died of complications of Alzheimer's disease at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital at age 84. He was survived by his wife, Josephine Horen; his sister, Martha; two sons, one daughter, and three grandchildren.
Harris was best known for a quartet of novels about baseball players: The Southpaw (1953), Bang the Drum Slowly (1956), A Ticket for a Seamstitch (1957), and It Looked Like For Ever (1979). Written in the vernacular, the books are the account of Henry "Author" Wiggen, a pitcher for the fictional New York Mammoths. In 1956, Bang the Drum Slowly was adapted for an installment of the dramatic television anthology series The United States Steel Hour; starring Paul Newman as Wiggen and Albert Salmi as doomed catcher Bruce Pearson. The novel also became a major motion picture in 1973, with a screenplay written by Harris, directed by John D. Hancock and featuring Michael Moriarty as Wiggen and Robert De Niro as Pearson.
After graduating in 1940 from Mount Vernon High School, he dropped his surname because "it was a difficult time for kids with Jewish names to get jobs." He subsequently went to work for Paul Winkler's Press Alliance news agency in New York City as a messenger and mimeograph operator.
He was drafted into the United States Army in January 1943. His growing opposition to war and his anger at the prevalence of racial discrimination in the Army led him to go AWOL from Camp Wheeler, Georgia, in February 1944. He was soon arrested and then hospitalized for psychoneurosis. He was honorably discharged in April 1944. His wartime experience formed the basis for two of his novels, Trumpet to the World (1946) and Something About a Soldier (1957).
Harris joined The Daily Item of Port Chester, New York, as a reporter in May 1944. A year later he accepted a position with PM in New York City but was fired after two months. In July 1945 he was hired by the International News Service and moved to St. Louis. While there, he met coworker Josephine Horen, whom he would marry in March 1946. After resigning in July 1946, he spent the next year and a half in a succession of short-lived journalism jobs in Albuquerque, New Mexico (Albuquerque Journal), Chicago (Negro Digest and Ebony), and New York (Park Row News Service).
In February 1948, Harris abandoned journalism to enroll in the University of Denver, from which he received a Master's degree in English in 1951 as well as obtaining a PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota in 1956.
In September 1956, he was hired by the English department of San Francisco State College, where he taught until 1967. He went on to teach at several other universities, including Purdue, California Institute of the Arts, the University of Southern California, and the University of Pittsburgh. In September 1980, he joined the faculty of Arizona State, where he was a professor of English and taught in the creative writing program until his retirement in 2001.
His first novel, Trumpet to the World, is the story of a young black soldier married to a white woman who is put on trial for striking back at a white officer, was published in 1946, and he continued to produce novels and contribute to periodicals through the years. In 1960, while in his first college teaching position, Harris promoted his then-most-recent book in a TV appearance as guest contestant in "You Bet Your Life", a game played on The Groucho Show.
In January 1962, Something About a Soldier, a stage version of Harris's novel, played briefly on Broadway. Written by Ernest Kinoy and produced by the Theatre Guild, it featured Sal Mineo in the lead role. Later, the novel Bang the Drum Slowly was adapted into a stage play at the Next Theatre in Evanston, Illinois.
Harris died of complications of Alzheimer's disease at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital at age 84. He was survived by his wife, Josephine Horen; his sister, Martha; two sons, one daughter, and three grandchildren.
Harris was best known for a quartet of novels about baseball players: The Southpaw (1953), Bang the Drum Slowly (1956), A Ticket for a Seamstitch (1957), and It Looked Like For Ever (1979). Written in the vernacular, the books are the account of Henry "Author" Wiggen, a pitcher for the fictional New York Mammoths. In 1956, Bang the Drum Slowly was adapted for an installment of the dramatic television anthology series The United States Steel Hour; starring Paul Newman as Wiggen and Albert Salmi as doomed catcher Bruce Pearson. The novel also became a major motion picture in 1973, with a screenplay written by Harris, directed by John D. Hancock and featuring Michael Moriarty as Wiggen and Robert De Niro as Pearson.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
June 25, 2023
In a self-contained series, does one (really) good book out of four make it worthwhile? Does it help that the weakest of the four is also the shortest? Is the investment of time and energy better justified because, in some circles, the series and the protagonist are commonly referred to, and thus, working through the series puts to bed the curiosity and provides relevant content to (more often than not) geeky, insider conversations? These, fortunately, are unimportant questions that need not be answered.
As for the series, my short summary is that the first book was interesting, the second was sublime (and, to my mind, justifiably iconic and deserving of its cult following), the third was verging on a waste, a too-cute-by-half throwaway, and the fourth (and final installment) was a fitting bookend or companion to the first in style, tone, content, etc.
Against that backdrop, I find it intriguing that the author published the first three installments in the 1950's, then waited more than 20 years to publish the fourth and final installment.
Reading the series somewhat recently, and getting to the final book in 2023, this is very much a period piece (not just about baseball, but life and travel and popular culture), ... and I found myself disoriented that the protagonist played (albeit briefly) into my lifetime (when, particularly in my early years, I was quite fixated on the game). As baseball period pieces go (but for the iconic second book, Bang the Drum Slowly), I'd be far more inclined to recommend Greenberg's The Celebrant, and I agree with those who argue it's the finest (if not one of the best) piece(s) of baseball fiction ever published.
Reader's skewed perspective: baseball, like all sports, evolves with time, and it's not just rules changes, but ... as players get (much) bigger and stronger and faster and specialization (most dramatically, relief pitching and designated hitting) mutates the game ... things look very different through the lens. And, as a parent, there's the game I grew up watching/following and played (unexceptionally, but for many years) that I was reintroduced to (as a parent and coach, and for many years, as a photographer) through Little League, camps, travel ball, and a decade of school (including college) ball.
In that context, one things the book/series gloriously portrayed was that, in any sport, there are those who aspire to play, those who play, many who toil and fail, and then there are the exceptional, the rare few, the true unicorns, who have been blessed with something (or some combination of things) - be it size, speed, reflexes, uncanny eyesight, flexibility, instinct, natural grace, self control/calm (yes, the game does slow down for some), etc. - that makes them special. (Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of Moneyball is that that some of those traits are obvious to the naked eye and some are not, but I digress.) Most of us grasp ... at some level ... the difference between elite athletes and mere mortals ... but the better you understand a sport, well, the more insight you gain into to how great the differences are - or what the order of magnitude is - between the truly great and, well, everyone else. And, in the fourth book the author did a relatively nice job portraying that, even for the truly great, to everything ... there is a season....
As for the series, my short summary is that the first book was interesting, the second was sublime (and, to my mind, justifiably iconic and deserving of its cult following), the third was verging on a waste, a too-cute-by-half throwaway, and the fourth (and final installment) was a fitting bookend or companion to the first in style, tone, content, etc.
Against that backdrop, I find it intriguing that the author published the first three installments in the 1950's, then waited more than 20 years to publish the fourth and final installment.
Reading the series somewhat recently, and getting to the final book in 2023, this is very much a period piece (not just about baseball, but life and travel and popular culture), ... and I found myself disoriented that the protagonist played (albeit briefly) into my lifetime (when, particularly in my early years, I was quite fixated on the game). As baseball period pieces go (but for the iconic second book, Bang the Drum Slowly), I'd be far more inclined to recommend Greenberg's The Celebrant, and I agree with those who argue it's the finest (if not one of the best) piece(s) of baseball fiction ever published.
Reader's skewed perspective: baseball, like all sports, evolves with time, and it's not just rules changes, but ... as players get (much) bigger and stronger and faster and specialization (most dramatically, relief pitching and designated hitting) mutates the game ... things look very different through the lens. And, as a parent, there's the game I grew up watching/following and played (unexceptionally, but for many years) that I was reintroduced to (as a parent and coach, and for many years, as a photographer) through Little League, camps, travel ball, and a decade of school (including college) ball.
In that context, one things the book/series gloriously portrayed was that, in any sport, there are those who aspire to play, those who play, many who toil and fail, and then there are the exceptional, the rare few, the true unicorns, who have been blessed with something (or some combination of things) - be it size, speed, reflexes, uncanny eyesight, flexibility, instinct, natural grace, self control/calm (yes, the game does slow down for some), etc. - that makes them special. (Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of Moneyball is that that some of those traits are obvious to the naked eye and some are not, but I digress.) Most of us grasp ... at some level ... the difference between elite athletes and mere mortals ... but the better you understand a sport, well, the more insight you gain into to how great the differences are - or what the order of magnitude is - between the truly great and, well, everyone else. And, in the fourth book the author did a relatively nice job portraying that, even for the truly great, to everything ... there is a season....
November 6, 2011
This was the final installment of Harris' tetralogy of baseball novels. I'd previously read the other three, encouraged to do so by reading excerpts of "Bang the Drum Slowly" in a couple of baseball anthologies and seeing the fine movie with Michael Moriarty and Robert DeNiro. As far as I can recall, I've gotten a couple of chapters into every one of these and thought, "Oh, dear, I'm not going to like this" and then end up really enjoying them.
The reason for my initial ambivalence and ultimate pleasure is always the same - the character of the protagonist, Henry "Author" Wiggen. A major league ballplayer whose career stretches from the 50s to the 70s, Henry is an exemplar of his breed. He is (at first glance) small-minded, bigotted, sexist, selfish and unlikeable. But as each novel unfolds, the reader gets under the surface of this professional athlete and discovers, through the unique argot with which Harris gifts "Author's" writing, a man of great compassion, with deep currents of concern for justice and the welfare of others. Like any good pitcher, Henry consistently fools you.
In this final volume, Henry has come up against the end of his storied career. Dealing with the rejection of his professional "family," strife at home and the unmistakable signs of mortality in his own body drives Wiggen to some (seemingly) odd choices but at the end of the book, one is comforted by Henry's ultimate consistency and decency.
It seemed to me an especially apt read just now, at the end of the baseball season when players are finding careers as well as seasons to be done and hearts are broken. As A. Bartlett Giamatti wrote: "It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone."
Recommended for baseball fans and those who enjoy offbeat literature.
The reason for my initial ambivalence and ultimate pleasure is always the same - the character of the protagonist, Henry "Author" Wiggen. A major league ballplayer whose career stretches from the 50s to the 70s, Henry is an exemplar of his breed. He is (at first glance) small-minded, bigotted, sexist, selfish and unlikeable. But as each novel unfolds, the reader gets under the surface of this professional athlete and discovers, through the unique argot with which Harris gifts "Author's" writing, a man of great compassion, with deep currents of concern for justice and the welfare of others. Like any good pitcher, Henry consistently fools you.
In this final volume, Henry has come up against the end of his storied career. Dealing with the rejection of his professional "family," strife at home and the unmistakable signs of mortality in his own body drives Wiggen to some (seemingly) odd choices but at the end of the book, one is comforted by Henry's ultimate consistency and decency.
It seemed to me an especially apt read just now, at the end of the baseball season when players are finding careers as well as seasons to be done and hearts are broken. As A. Bartlett Giamatti wrote: "It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone."
Recommended for baseball fans and those who enjoy offbeat literature.
May 26, 2023
Weird book. A lot of the grammar errors and the misspelling of the word “Prostate” really threw me off. Why? What is the point of that? I did enjoy the annotations within my copy, as clearly it was once owned by a high schooler. I also enjoyed the music on Page 242.
August 11, 2009
The last and in many ways weakest of Harris' books about left-handed pitcher Henry "author" Wiggin still has many charms. At times, Wiggins' voice grows tiresome and the subplots about his marriage and family don't always ring true, but the main theme of growing older, framed around Wiggins' attempts to latch on with a new team as a reliever after being cut by the Mammoths is nice. Even if this work can't match "The Southpaw" or "Bang the Drum Slowly" for poignant takes on human nature, give Harris credit--he wraps up Wiggen's pitching career on just the right note and in doing so caps the series with equal effectiveness.
July 24, 2021
The Henry Wiggen books are my favorite baseball novels. And Bang the Drum Slowly is my favorite baseball movie
March 22, 2022
In the last of the four-volume Henry Wiggen series, Henry is facing the end of his 19-year Hall-of-Fame-worthy pitching career for the New York Mammoths in the early 1970s, trying to extend it at least one year to give his youngest daughter the chance to see him pitch and variously considering teams in Japan, California, and Washington, DC; relief pitching; and, when it appears no opportunity will arise, broadcasting. A delightful, often laugh-out-loud read, thanks in no small part to Henry’s homespun narrative style filled with misspellings, quirky usages and elocutions, and words split into two (like “For Ever” in the title); his problematic and seriocomic relationships both with males (primarily team owners, general managers, former managers and teammates) and females (wife, daughter, daughter’s “phsychiatrist,” lawyer, tennis pro broadcast partner, a team owner, a manager’s wife); and his infallible insights into the foibles of human beings and their behaviors and situations that venture far beyond the foul lines and bleachers. It would be fun to revisit the earlier Henry Wiggen volumes, all read long ago, to see how he grew.
October 4, 2025
"If you don't know how to spell a word make your very best guess at it." Lacking the witty editorial credit of Mark Harris, his series of faux-memoirs from Hall of Fame-bound pitcher Henry "Author" Wiggen comes to a belated end here, charting his release from the New York Mammoths, his multiplicity of post-career options including a Japanese exposition team, pitcher-coaching, radio broadcasting, and a California winery, and particularly frustrating attempts to get back in the game as a relief pitcher of 39 & 2/3 years, a floating fastball, and a crowd(ed)/ing prost(r)ate. The comedy and possibly source of frustration for many readers here is that there is much less baseball than the previous volumes, but It Looked Like For Ever is more about what a millionnaire, national figure, and father of four girls is to do after the game is over and the years stretch out beyond clear sight. Read from that perspective, that's why this might be simultaneously the funniest and the most melancholy of the 4 books.
November 18, 2021
The fourth and final book in the Henry Wiggen saga and it left no doubt that it was the end. Henry having been released by the New York Mammoths following a 19-year career is now trying to catch on somewhere else as a relief pitcher so that his youngest daughter would have the chance to see her father pitch in a Major League game. I found the ending sad even if that wasn't the author's intention though.
August 1, 2023
A fitting final book. Henry really has mother left to play for, but for family and pride.
After a lot of running around and talking, Henry gets his chance. He has great success as a relief pitcher. Until a line drive nails him in the head. A few prior batter balls had indicated fielding problems.
They were good prectors as Henry woke up in a hospital.
Dre fit to Hillary for realizing as fast as Henry that he was done.
Fitting wind up to the saga of the Southpaw
After a lot of running around and talking, Henry gets his chance. He has great success as a relief pitcher. Until a line drive nails him in the head. A few prior batter balls had indicated fielding problems.
They were good prectors as Henry woke up in a hospital.
Dre fit to Hillary for realizing as fast as Henry that he was done.
Fitting wind up to the saga of the Southpaw
April 14, 2020
This is the fourth and final book in the story of Henry Wiggen. Here we meet him as he tries to hang on to his career as a pitcher wile simultaneously pursuing a manager's job. Neither works out well for him. The book like Henry's career went on a little too long with onl glimpses of the witand insight that made earlier stories so much better.
August 15, 2019
Wiggen is not ready to hang up his glove,what impels Henry to pitch against fate ,to trek to California and as far asJapan ? he still has a few innings left anyway . Is he principled or prossessed ?You`ll have to decide for yourself.
This is the end of the Southpaw.
This is the end of the Southpaw.
May 20, 2017
Not difficult to rip through a Harris book.
February 13, 2021
This was the best of the four. Maybe that’s because I can relate to the getting old part.
June 12, 2015
The last of four novels conseriing my third favorite hero in literature Henry Wiggen (AKA Author to his friends) 195 pound left handed pitcher for the New York Mammouths . It all started in the late 50s with " The Southpaw,Henry was 19 when he started with the Mammouths,next came "Bang the drums Slowly " than came "A ticket for a seamstitch " and in this novel Henry has been released by the Mammouths after 19 years and 247 victories,but Henry is not ready to hang up his glove as he treks around the country and even Japan looking for a team that will take on a 39 year old late releaf pitcher.At the age of 39 he is having a midlife crises. Will some team give him one last shot of greatness? The September of a Mans years comes somewhat earlier for a ball player ( which I am not) but I knew what his thought process was.
August 31, 2007
First of all, it's not a typo. This baseball novel completes the Henry Wiggen series that Harris wrote over a couple of decades. This is not as famous as the equally brilliant Bang the Drum Slowly (later a fabulous film with Robert DeNiro and Michael Moriarty), but it's more mature and richer. Harris is funny and poignant and right on target in this look at an aging baseball player. It's a comic tour de force that will break your heart at the same time.
May 8, 2011
The last and least of the Henry Wiggen books (see my reviews of The Southpaw, Bang the Drug Slowly, and A Ticket for a Seamstitch), written decades after the others and set 18 years into the diamond Huck Finn's career, when he's experienced enough not to be quite as charming.
February 11, 2015
Having loved Harris's "Bang the Drum Slowly" in book and movie and having often repeated the last line ("From here on out, I rag nobody"), I was happy to learn of a third Henry Wiggen baseball book. Wiggen is forced to accept retirement after 19 years with the New York Mammoths. Although not as compelling as 'Bang the Drum", it was easy and enjoyable to read, in part to hear again Wiggen's syntax.
Read
January 7, 2009Not part of the nostalgia kick, since I never read this, as it was written many years after the first three Wiggen novels. Quite different from them, but good.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews