People are talking about Chad Harbach’s debut novel, The Art of Fielding, (Little, Brown, 9/7, Hachette Large Print, 9780316204729).

It debuts on this week’s Indie Best Seller list at #15, just behind another strong, but less-hyped literary debut, We The Animals by Justin Torres (HMH; Blackstone Audio).

Here’s the buzz:

• Bloomberg News ran this hilarious headline about it, “Unemployed Harvard Man Auctions Baseball Novel for $650000 …” (Harbach, the co-editor of the literary magazine, n+1, is unpaid), followed by the equally hilarious one today, “Shortstop Genius Hits Ugly Slump in $650000 Novel Optioned by HBO …“

• In a move M.C. Escher would envy, Harbach’s co-editor at n+1, has written an article about the “making of the book” that appears in the October issue of Vanity Fair. It is also being released as an “expanded ebook” (dying to read it, since it’s supposed to be filled with industry gossip, but the article is not available on VF‘s Web site. I am watching my mailbox for my oh-so-19th C print copy of the magazine to arrive).

• It’s the New Yorker‘s September Book Club pick (featuring a live chat with the author at the end of the month). It’s also on nearly every fall book preview.

• Michiko likes it — a lot. In the daily NYT, Kakutani says it ” is not only a wonderful baseball novel — it zooms immediately into the pantheon of classics, alongside The Natural by Bernard Malamud and The Southpaw by Mark Harris — but it’s also a magical, melancholy story about friendship and coming of age that marks the debut of an immensely talented writer.”

• But let’s not trust Kakutani just because she’s so hard to please (and she has a Pulitzer Prize). On GalleyChat, librarians have been enthusiastic about it for months.

• It’s difficult to tell how library users are responding to all the talk; holds are heavy in some libraries, but not at all in others. It’s one to keep your eye on.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 8th, 2011 at 11:04 am and is filed under 2011 -- Fall, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.