"Benjamin and Marilyn Dunne, Bobo, Annie, Suzie. Here, in this tremendously moving novel, is an American family today, riding out a kind of crisis of feelings and identity that is particular to our time. We see them, the Dunnes, through the eyes of the young husband, Benjamin-in his mid-thirties-whose apparently solid and agreeable life is beginning to unravel. His marriage is coming apart. His wife, Marilyn, suddenly and deeply wants more than her days contain. His twelve-year-old boy is becoming unbearably sullen (you talk to Bobo and he puts his fingers in his ears). Benjamin's own emotional vertigo is turning him toward another woman ... What happens as he tries to pull his life together is told in the dramatic, fresh, and beautifully rendered context of a half-pint baseball season. Benjamin, trying to contain his anger at his infuriating twelve-year-old, volunteers to coach the team on which Bobo plays. Bobo's response" "Trade me." The other kids catch his hostility. And Benjamin, even while coping with all the adult nonsense and intrigue that surround small-fry baseball leagues, finds himself obsessively determined to win-to win the respect of the team, to win Bobo, to win games. To win back his own slipping command of himself and his life. As the summer progresses, the small and the large dramas intermingle and reflect each other. The daily suspense of the ball field-that miniature yet altogether serious world of contest and passion-is both part of, and emblem of, the larger suspense, the turbulence, the conflict, the striving that takes place within Benjamin as he tries to resolve his panics and confusions. What will be his relationship with his wife (he thinks they belong together, but do they?); with the woman who, in his bad time, has given him wine and cheese and cheerfulness and taken him into her bed (what does he owe her?); with his children; and with himself? ..."--Jacket.