The Northern

“The Northern is both a tender-hearted, contemplative coming-of-age novel and adventure-filled road trip story that brings a unique time in sports history to life.” — Zoe Whittall, author of The Fake and The Best Kind of PeopleIt is the summer of 1952 and three men — well, one man and two boys — are on a spiritual and commercial mission. Dispatched from Minnesota to Western Ontario, they have been hired by an upstart Mormon baseball card company to find licensees for their products among the young men filing out Korean War–era rosters in the Northern League, at the bottom-most rung of professional baseball. What the Northern has for them, and the secrets and deceptions they have for each other, will drive their two weeks in Canada into ever-growing chaos.A novel concerned with sports, labor, growing up, and God, The Northern is a funny and heartbreaking book about the series of disappointments that characterize the progress of growing up.“W.P. Kinsella has company: Jacob Mooney has written another classic Canadian novel about baseball.” — Ben Lindbergh, co-host of Effectively Wild and author of The MVP Machine and The Only Rule Is It Has to Work