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Shop nowPlay for a Kingdom
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Learn moreMay, 1864. In a moment of quiet during the endgame between Grant and Lee, a Union and a Confederate company meet, not entirely by accident. The Union soldiers are a motley company of Irish, English, and German stock, all ragged and worn from the Battle of the Wilderness. Left behind to guard their army’s flank, they decide to relax with a baseball and bat when, as if by magic, a company of Alabama infantry appears from the woods. These ordinary soldiers determine to play baseball with the enemy, perhaps for diversion, perhaps to remind themselves that they are still human.
In the ensuing days, Brooklyn meets Alabama four more times on the playing field, even their armies collide in the horror now known as Spotsylvania. As every game and skirmish bring them closer to a violent end, what began as a game turns into a business as serious as death and dishonor, and each soldier realizes the price and the prize that betrayal offers.
Thomas Dyja is the award-winning author of nonfiction books and three novels. He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Ian Esmo is an audiobook narrator who specializes in athlete and sports biographies.
Reviews
“This innovative and original first novel blends two staples of the Americans psyche—the Civil War and baseball—into a recipe for a very readable book. The battle scenes ring true…and the baseball scenes ring true as well. Dyja’s book is admirably wrought.”
“A sweeping novel of humanity on the battlefield, peopled with provocative characters. Play for a Kingdom is that rare treat: a novel that interweaves war and play, an ironic tale told with compassion. Watch Tom Dyja.”
“Dyja has a gifted understanding of the powerlessness one faces in combat. War in this novel is not tragic merely because it kills and maims good men; it is dispiriting because it robs them of their identities…The tense mixture of espionage, betrayal, and vivid battle scenes should please discriminating fans of Civil War fiction.”
“A uniquely compelling Civil War novel set amid the chaos and devastation that characterized the savage battle of Spotsylvania…An absolutely stunning narrative.”
“Dyja effectively juxtaposes the horror and chaos of war with the familiar routine of the game. He explores the theme of war and games as natural activities of man, as battles of pride and place, and as testing grounds of moral and physical honor…An engrossing story, told within the context of actual events.”
“The madness of war and the passion evoked by baseball complement each other beautifully in this extraordinary first novel…A sensitive, forceful, even breathtaking commingling of play and war, daydream and nightmare, the humane and the bestial, in which the human dimensions of warfare are unforgettably evoked.”
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