Suder: A Novel - Softcover

Everett, Percival

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798217008469

Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

Now with a brilliant new package, a re-issue of the debut novel  by Percival Everett, New York Times bestselling author of National Book Award winner James.

It's the middle of the season and the third baseman for the Seattle Mariners, Craig Suder, is in the midst of an inescapable slump. On top of that, his wife has been keeping her distance and Suder can’t shake the creeping fear that he might have inherited his mother’s insanity. That’s’ when his team suggests he might enjoy a little break.

What’s a man to do pack up the essentials—his record player, Charlie Parker’s “Ornithology,” and a saxophone—and hit the road? What ensues is the adventure of a lifetime. Haunted by his past as a young black boy in the South, and soon on the run from some  less-than-savory individuals, Suder soon finds himself in curious company—including a little white girl and a pet elephant. Epic, thrilling, and utterly alive, Suder takes us on a whirlwind journey through the joys, the sorrows, and the madness that make up a life.

First published in 1983 by Louisianna State University Press, Suder marked the debut of an iconic American voice. Over the course of his five decade career, Everett has written over twenty five books and been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize (for 2020’s Telephone), twice longlisted for the Booker Prize, and the recipient of the 2024 National Book Award for the “genius” (The Atlantic) James, a brilliantly imagined retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. James was a #1 New York Times bestseller and is being developed into film by Stephen Spielberg.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

PERCIVAL EVERETT is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC, and the author of New York Times bestseller and National Book Award winner James. His other recent books include Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, Erasure, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award and The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the writer Danzy Senna, and their children.

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Chapter 1

So, I’m up at the plate in the top of the ninth and the first pitch is, I grant you, an honest-­to-God textbook strike and the fat umpire’s backwards dance and that turn to the right he manages don’t offend me at all. And then the second pitch comes whistling in way inside and I hear that fat man in blue yell, “Steee-­rike!” and I turn to catch the tail end of his routine and I just can’t believe it. So, I flip the bat in my hand like a baton, as is my custom, and step up to him, face to face, and give him the questioning eye.

There he is right in front of me, behind that foam-­filled apron, and he yells, “Strike!”

“That was way inside,” I tell him, “I could feel it on my pants.”

“Strike,” he repeats and lets out this little shit-­eating grin and I really want to hit him and I tell myself not to and turn away.

“Blind bastard,” I says under my breath.

And he says to me, “If you can’t—­”

I cut him off: “Why don’t you go read up on the strike zone.”

He looks at me and yells, “Play ball!” Then when I’m stepping into the box he says, “That’s two, Suder.”

And I ignore him. The next pitch is so inside that the catcher leaves his perch to get it and I know because I follow the ball all the way, don’t even move my bat, but as sure as anything that fat umpire does his Fred Astaire and calls another strike. So, I’m out and when I’m walking away I mutter, “Why don’t you just put on one of their uniforms!” And I’m still holding the bat clenched in my fists when David Nicks flies to center for the third out.

The pitcher finishes his warm-­ups and the ball gets passed all around and fast Eddie Ramos is walking up to the plate swinging a bat with a lead doughnut on it. Lou Tyler, our manager, is yelling that we’re up one run and that we should hold them. “Three up, three down,” he says. “Three up, three down.” Then he yells to me, “Suder! Suder!” and I turn to see him make like he’s bunting with an invisible bat. “Watch the bunt!” he yells. “Watch the bunt!” It strikes me that he sometimes says things twice and I imagine it’s a fancy way of stuttering and, heeding his words, I step on down the third-­base line toward the batter.

The first pitch is outside, but I see his left hand sneak up along the wood and I know he wants to bunt and I get ready. On the next pitch he does bunt and I run for it and the catcher runs for it and the pitcher runs for it and we all stop dead cold like it’s something nasty we want somebody else to pick up. Finally, I pick it up, pump once—­the asshole pitcher is in the way—­and throw it to first, but I’m too late. So, the tying run is on first and I look up at the board and see I’m being charged with an error. The next guy up doesn’t bunt, he just tags that first pitch and sends it airmail special delivery over the left-­field fence, the old Green Monster, and the game is over and we lose and ain’t nothing left but the crying and accusing. I close my eyes for a second and then I take to the showers.

So, I come out of the shower and slide into my Jockey shorts and sit down in front of my locker with my face in my hands. I think to myself that all I want to do is get stinking drunk, when I see Lou Tyler turning the corner and heading down the aisle toward me. He comes and sits beside me, straddles the wooden chair, and pushes the brim of his cap up.

“We all have slumps,” he says and I’m pulling on my socks, half listening to him, and he goes on, “but you got to break out of this one soon.”

I look over at him and I ask, “Did you see what they was calling strikes out there?”

“So you had a bad call.”

“A bad call? I suppose I really made that error out there, too.” I look away from him and shake my head.

“Okay, a couple of bad calls.”

“Jesus,” I says.

“Truth of the matter is, Craig, that you have to straighten up and fly right.” And he slaps me on the back and tells me to get dressed.

I watch him walk away and then I slam the locker. “Yeah, straighten up and fly right,” I says to myself, “fly right.”


We get to the airport and we’re boarding the plane when Tuck McShane, the trainer, comes up to me. “How’s the leg?” he wants to know.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with my leg,” I says, sitting down.

He sits beside me. “I thought I saw you favoring your left leg last night.”

“Nope.”

“I’m glad you’re sitting by the window.” He looks past me out over the wing. It’s common knowledge that old Tuck gets dizzy when he stands tippy-­toed.

“What you studying on so hard?” he asks me and then, before I can answer, “Don’t worry, you’ll pick up. You’ll play a lot better once you relax. You oughta try some breathing exercises.” He inhales deeply and lets it out.

I look back out the window and watch the flaps as we take off and I see a bird and I begin to wish I could fly up high and all without the aid of a machine.

As we’re climbing out of the plane in Baltimore, old Tuck turns to me. “It’s your right leg, ain’t it? Want me to take a look?”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with my leg,” I says.

We check into the hotel and David Nicks and I go to our room. While David is in the bathroom I call my wife and she’s sounding a little down, so I ask her what’s wrong.

“Peter came home the other day and he’d been fighting,” she tells me.

“He’s a seven-­year-­old boy, honey,” I says, “they fight sometimes.”

“You don’t understand. This is the third time this week.”

“Maybe somebody’s picking on him. He’s gotta stand up for himself.”

“He says the boys at day camp tease him about you, the way you’ve been playing.”

I hear this and I don’t know what to say.

“Craig?”

“What’s he doing in that school yard, anyway? It’s summer, he should be out playing in the grass. Listen, I’ve got to go. David wants the phone.”

“Okay, I love you.”

“Me, too.”

I go out and get drunk enough to embarrass a few dead relatives. I’m still drinking and I’m feeling pretty bad seeing as we just dropped three straight to Boston and this fella recognizes me. “Ain’t you Craig Suder?”

I nod. I don’t even look at him, just keep my eyes on the bar and nod.

He starts to laugh and talk about how we got our butts whipped and I just keep looking at the bar, nodding. Then he says, “If you was outta the lineup, Seattle might win a few.”

He still ain’t got to me and I’m still nodding.

He sorta calls one of his buddies over and they’re standing on either side of me and the first fella says, “Black boys ain’t got no business in baseball no way.”

Well, at this I turn and look at him and the next thing I know I’m coming to in an alley with my face in some garbage. I get up and make my way to the hotel.


I sure as hell hope that craziness ain’t passed from parents to children by way of the blood. I say this because...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 13: 9798217008469
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 193
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland