Patrick Creevy – författare

Tyrus Raymond Cobb. Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in a nearly unanimous vote. Highest lifetime batting average in baseball. Highest lifetime number of runs scored. Second highest lifetime number of hits. The run of statistics goes on, making it clear that Ty Cobb was baseball''s greatest overall player. But before Ty Cobb was a legend, he was a young man trying to escape from his famous father''s lengthy shadow. William H. Cobb, former state senator, renowned educator, champion of the Southern cause in the late 1800s and early 1900s, a gentleman and a scholar. Tyrus Raymond Cobb, his oldest son, was to carry on the proud Cobb family traditions, as explained by Ty Cobb: "The honorable and honest Cobb blood . . . never will be subjected. It bows to no wrong nor to any man . . . . The Cobbs have their ideals, and God help anyone who strives to bend a Cobb away from such."Unfortunately for W.H., Ty''s greatest desire was to play baseball-a trivial game that would bring him into contact with low people. Yet the father could not deny that the son''s passion for his chosen profession burned hot, reflecting the very strength of will that was the hallmark of Cobb men. After much struggle, W.H. blessed his son and encouraged him to continue playing ball.The reconciliation nearly came too late, for soon after, W. H. Cobb was shot twice at close range-murdered-by his wife of more than twenty years. Ty was nineteen years old. The grief-stricken boy burned with rage as rumors circulated through the small Georgia town--rumors that his mother had been having an affair and that his father had caught her in the act.With his father newly buried and his mother awaiting trial, Ty Cobb was summoned to Detroit to play for the Tigers. Tyrus is a fictional account of this time in young Cobb''s life-that pivotal half-season when Ty had to prove his value on the field or forever lose any chance of playing professional ball. Subjected to a rookie hazing that would have destroyed a lesser man, Cobb carried his battle with his teammates from the clubhouse onto the field and emerged bloodied but unbowed. The sights and sounds of cut throat baseball are brilliantly evoked-a type of baseball that Cobb said was "about as gentlemanly as a kick in the crotch." This thoroughly researched novel is a deft psychological portrait of a young man at a time of turmoil and transition. Patrick Creevy, whose earlier novel was praised as "intense [and full of] poetic yearning and literary allusion" (Kirkus Reviews), takes a unique literary look at the man dubbed "the Meanest Man in Baseball" as he left boyhood behind and began the baseball journey that made him a legend. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Unending terror--in his twenties, that is what Chicagoan Peter Roche endured in every waking moment. Shattered by his father''s harrowing death from cancer, and the incomprehensible destruction of his lifelong friendship with John Lemaster, Roche launched a quiet offensive against total fear, searching desperately for a last sign of hope along the darkening road to helplessness.With the aid of Dr. Alexander Conlon, Peter begins his quest for peace and safety, a quest that leaves him wondering if the good doctor will prove to be a force for sanity or yet another sign of the disintegration that he so fears.In a world where love and hate seem indistinguishable, and hope and fear are one, Peter''s wife Allie is by his side. She challenges him with her realness, and emotions that are intangible, and offers hope to find the minuscule safe point balanced precisely between longing for life and fear of death.For Peter, his father and John Lemaster embody the spiritual forces that, in tension, have forever made poetry work. Words...thoughts...images...all are real to him, stretching him between the Powers that insist on keeping the self together and those that demand its total dissolution. In this stunning, visionary novel, Peter confronts his past, seeking a way to distinguish the very poetry of life, from mere words and madness.At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.