Biting, witty, provocative, and sardonic, Bernard Malamud's The Natural is widely considered to be the premier basebal novel of all time. It tells the story of Roy Hobbs—an athlete born with rare and wondrous gifts—who is robbed of his prime playing years by a youthful indiscretion that nearly consts him his life. But at an age when most players are considering retirement, Roy reenters the game, lifting the lowly New York Knights from last place into pennant contention and becoming an instant hero in the process. Now all he has to worry about is the fixers, the boss, the slump, the jinx, the fans...and the dangerously seductive Memo Paris, the one woman Roy can't seem to get out of his mind.

Back in the thirties the baseball writers making the swing through the West with the major league teams occasionally wondered whether one of their number would ever produce a serious novel about baseball. That novel has finally been written-- and if the author does not come from the ranks of baseball reporters, at least he hails from Brooklyn and there are those who feel that qualifies him ex officio. It's an unusually fine novel, too although I don't know how the professionals are going to take it. For Bernard Malamud's interests go far beyond baseball. What he has done is to contrive a sustained and elaborate allegory in which the "natural" player--who operates with ease and the greatest skill, without having been taught-- is equated with the natural man who, left alone by, say, politicians and advertising agencie, might achieve his real fulfillment...