Bang the Drum Slowly

Henry Wiggen, hero ofThe Southpawand the best-known fictional baseball player in America, is back again, throwing a baseball "with his arm and his brain and his memory and his bluff for the sake of his pocket and his family." More than a novel about baseball,Bang the Drum Slowlyis about the friendship and the lives of a group of men as they each learn that a teammate is dying of cancer.Bang the Drum Slowlywas chosen as one of the top one hundred sports books of all time bySports Illustratedand appears on numerous other lists of best baseball fiction. In the introduction to this new Bison Books edition Mark Harris discusses the making of the classic 1973 film starring Robert DeNiro, based on his screen adaptation of the book. Also available in Bison Books editions areThe Southpaw, It Looked Like For Ever.

Mark Harris (1922-2007).