Description

This is a book about heroism – of sorts. Roy Hobbs has an immense natural gift for playing baseball. He could become one of the great ones of the game, a player unmatched in his time – a hero. But his first hard-won big chance ends violently, at the hands of a crazy girl, and then it is years before he gets another shot. At last, in a few short seasons, or never, he must achieve the towering reputation that he feels is his right.

Publisher Review

A rich original of the first rank -- Saul Bellow One of the best writers in the English language... His work embeds itself into one's consciousness and refuses to be dislodged * Sunday Times * The Natural by Bernard Malamud shows the agony, destruction and pathos that come often with great sports talent -- Sid Waddell, sports commentator * Independent * This book established that we could have a serious adult baseball novel by playing with the parallels between mythical elements in the game and mythical elements in literature * Chicago Tribune * Bernard Malamud's The Natural that still leads the field [for novels about baseball]. It is one of the landmarks of a period in US fiction when Jewish novelists dominated the scene with work of the highest ambition * Metro *