{"product_id":"the-natural-9780374502003","title":"The Natural","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe classical novel (and basis for the acclaimed film starring Robert Redford) now in a new edition\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eIntroduction by Kevin Baker\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Natural\u003c\/i\u003e, Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is also the first--and some would say still the best--novel ever written about baseball. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material--the story of a superbly gifted \"natural\" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era--and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work. Four decades later, Alfred Kazin's comment still holds true: \"Malamud has done something which--now that he has done it!--looks as if we have been waiting for it all our lives. He has really raised the whole passion and craziness and fanaticism of baseball as a popular spectacle to its ordained place in mythology.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBernard Malamud\u003c\/b\u003e (1914-86) wrote eight novels; he won the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for\u003ci\u003e The Fixer\u003c\/i\u003e, and the National Book Award for \u003ci\u003eThe Magic Barrel\u003c\/i\u003e. Born in Brooklyn, he taught for many years at Bennington College in Vermont.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50614787571986,"sku":"9780374502003","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_982119e9-6e7d-41d5-9ef5-8800a0f4ac5b.jpg?v=1732463214","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-natural-9780374502003","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}