Originally published in 1895, and out of print since, The Plated City is one of the first adult novels that features baseball as a central theme. The novel treats race, class and sexuality with a surprisingly modern touch, and paints a picture of America during a time mostly unknown to modern Americans. The story takes place in a thinly disguised Meriden, Connecticut, and one of its main characters is based on the great 19th century black player, Frank Grant, who grew up playing baseball with the author, Bliss Perry.
“In the 1890s it was fashionable to exhibit grand sentiments. Before the advent of autos and movies and radio and TV and computers and cell phones and hand-held game devices and other distractions people lived in closer daily proximity to their hopes and fears. Perhaps they were more swayed by emotion. In any case, a novel reflects its time, and to step into The Plated City’s richly detailed portrait of a Connecticut town is akin to journeying back to 1895. You won’t like everything you experience on your trip—casual racism in references to blacks as “childlike people,” for example—but you will come away feeling that you’ve paid a vivid visit to a bygone America. Best of all, you are in for a good read. The Plated City will grip you as it informs—and it will also warm your heart.
Open to the first pages, settle into that crowded grandstand at the ballpark, and embark on a pleasurable, provocative journey in time.”
— from the Introduction by Darryl Brock, author of If I Never Get Back
Published by Rvive Books – paperback – 978-0-9801909-6-0 – $17.95