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August 19, 2022 - Booked Solid by Terri Schlichenmeyer

Magic Season: A Son’s Story 
by Wade Rouse
c.2022, Hanover Square Press 
$27.99, 304 pages

You’ve always looked up to your dad.


Sometimes it happened literally, like when you were a child and “up” was the only way to see his face hovering over yours. You’ve looked up at him in anger, embarrassment, dismissal, and yeah, you’ve looked up to him in the best ways, too—never forgetting, as in the memoir Magic Season by Wade Rouse, that sometimes, the hardest thing is seeing eye-to-eye.


Wade Rouse threw like a girl.


He couldn’t catch a baseball, either, and he wasn’t much of a runner as a young boy. He tried, because his father insisted on it, but Rouse was better with words and books and thoughts. He was nothing like his elder brother, Todd, who was a natural hunter, a good sportsman, and an athlete, and their father never let Rouse forget it.


And yet, curiously, Rouse and his dad bonded over baseball.


Specifically, their love of Cardinals baseball became the one passion they shared. The stats, the players, the idea that “anything can happen,” the hope that there’d be a World Series at the end of every season was the glue they needed. It was what saved them when Todd was killed in a motorcycle accident. When Rouse came out to his father, Cards baseball was what brought them back together after two years of estrangement.


In between games, though, and between seasons, there was yelling, cruelty, and all the times when father and son didn’t communicate. Rouse accepted, but didn’t like, his father’s alcoholism or his harsh life-lessons; his father didn’t like Rouse’s plans for his own future. Rouse admits that he cried a lot, and he was surprised at the rare times when his father displayed emotion—especially since an Ozarks man like Ted Rouse didn’t do things like that.


Until the time was right.


Love, Wade Rouse says, is “shaped like a baseball.” You catch it, throw it, or hit it out of the park, but “You don’t know where it’s going.” 


Just be sure you never take “your eye off it, from beginning to end.”


Oh, my. Oh, my, but Magic Season is a 10-hankie book.


First, though, you’re going to laugh because author Wade Rouse is a natural-born humorist and his family is a great launching-pad for him despite the splinters and near-clawing despair of the overall theme of this book. That sense of humor can’t seem to let a good story go, even when it’s obvious that there’s something heartbreaking waiting in the bullpen.


Which brings us to the father-son-baseball triple-play. It may seem to some readers that such a book has been done and done again, but this one feels different. Rouse excels at filling in the blanks on the other, essential teammates in this tale and, like any big skirmish, readers are left breathless, not knowing the final score until the last out.


If you like your memoirs sweet but with a dash of spice and some tears, right here you go. For you, Magic Season is a book to look up. ▼


Terri Schlichenmeyer’s first book, The Big Book of Facts, is available now in bookstores. Her next two are scheduled to appear in bookstores soon.

‹ August 19, 2022 - Spotlight on the Arts by Doug Yetter up August 19, 2022 - Straight Talk by David Garrett ›

Past Issues

Issues Index

  • February 4, 2022 - Issue Index
  • March 4, 2022 - Issue Index
  • April 1, 2022 - Issue Index
  • May 6, 2022 - Issue Index
  • May 27, 2022 - Issue Index
  • June 17, 2022 - Issue Index
  • July 8, 2022 - Issue Index
  • July 29, 2022 - Issue Index
  • August 19, 2022 - Issue Index
    • August 19, 2022 - Cover to Cover with Issuu
    • August 19, 2022 - From the Editor by Marj Shannon
    • August 19, 2022 - In Brief
    • August 19, 2022 - President's View by Wesley Combs
    • August 19, 2022 - SUNFESTIVAL Auction 2022
    • August 19, 2022 - Judy Gold Headlines SUNFESTIVAL 2022 by Nancy Sakaduski
    • August 19, 2022 - CAMP News
    • August 19, 2022 - Out & About by Eric C. Peterson
    • August 19, 2022 - The Way We Were by Fay Jacobs
    • August 19, 2022 - Community News
    • August 19, 2022 - Training CAMP by Jon Adler Kaplan
    • August 19, 2022 - Words Matter by Clarence Fluker
    • August 19, 2022 - Health in Our Community
    • August 19, 2022 - Health & Wellness by Robb Mapou
    • August 19, 2022 - Health & Wellness: Classes + Events
    • August 19, 2022 - Guest House Chronicles by Tom Kelch
    • August 19, 2022 - Volunteer Spotlight by Glenn Lash
    • August 19, 2022 - Head Out on the Highway by Michael Gilles
    • August 19, 2022 - It's My Life by Michael Thomas Ford
    • August 19, 2022 - Celebrating Tom Wilson by Eric Peterson
    • August 19, 2022 - Dining Out by Fay Jacobs
    • August 19, 2022 - The Real Dirt by Eric W. Wahl
    • August 19, 2022 - Celebrity Interview by Chris Azzopardi
    • August 19, 2022 - Historical Headliners by Ann Aptaker
    • August 19, 2022 - CAMPshots
    • August 19, 2022 - The Sea Salt Table by Ed Castelli
    • August 29, 2022 - OUTlook by Beth Shockley
    • August 19, 2022 - Spotlight on the Arts by Doug Yetter
    • August 19, 2022 - Booked Solid by Terri Schlichenmeyer
    • August 19, 2022 - Straight Talk by David Garrett
    • August 19, 2022 - View Point by Richard J. Rosendall
    • August 19, 2022 - Deep Inside Hollywood by Romeo San Vicente
    • August 19, 2022 - Dog Days by Pattie Cinelli
    • August 19, 2022 - We Remember
  • September 16, 2022 - Issue Index
  • October 14, 2022 - Issue Index
  • November 18, 2022 - Issue Index
  • December 16, 2022 - Issue Index

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