Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding may be the first debut novel to have another book written about it before it was even published.
Sold to the American publisher Little, Brown for a $665,000 (£431,000) advance, and appearing on the other side of the Atlantic late last year, it is already a sensation. It is the story of Henry Skrimshander, a boy from the Midwest with a talent for catching and throwing a baseball. On the cusp of success, Henry loses his nerve, prey to what is famously and fabulously called "the yips". It draws on the real-life experience of a Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher from the early 1970s, Steve Blass.
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