Cool, Sue! Thanks so much for commenting.

gosh, I think I would disagree about there being “no sense of the impact” that the sexual abuse had on his life — I think his whole world turned when he finally got counseling, talked to someone about the sexual abuse, and was then convinced to talk to his family, and others about it. In fact, I think Wherever I Wind Up is the result of him needing an outlet to process what happened to him when he was eight years old. And there’s a bit after the counseling begins (and he survives the Missouri River) where he says he thinks there’s a direct connection between having stopped hiding the sexual abuse and being able to be fully present when he was on the mound. His whole career reverses course, culminating with the Cy Young Award.

p.s. I wrote the young reader edition of WIWU. It was an awesome assignment.

I don’t wanna oversell the book — the writing’s sometimes flat, and there’s not much in the way of characterization of other people. He doesn’t do a ton of introspection. There’s no sense of the impact of the sexual abuse on his private life, for instance, and no sense of why he had an affair (or how his wife found out or how, specifically, they worked on their marriage afterward). But he’s had a fascinating career, and it’s nice to read about an athlete who’s neither dimwitted nor dickish, and I liked learning about the knuckleball as a pitch!

Egg-zackly.

Kim, I just LOVE that line!