The following is a new book review by Richard C. Crepeau, posted at PopPolitics magazine.

Those who heard the voice of the late Jim Corder, professor of English at Texas Christian University, will hear it again in these five essays and one poem contained within “The Heroes Have Gone: Personal Essays on Sport, Popular Culture and the American West,” a delightful, thoughtful, and at times profound little collection.

The voice and accent are from West Texas, as was the man. West Texas also provided the bedrock of his view of the world. The pen and ink drawings illustrating these essays are also Corder’s doing.

The poem is a quiet tribute to Mickey Mantle, written three days prior to Mantle’s death. In five stanzas Corder captures the contradictions of the hero’s life, and the melancholy of his death, which is then juxtaposed to the poet’s continuing life. It says as much about Mantle, life, death and heroism as the combined efforts of all the obituary writers of a nation.

The opening essay, “The Glove,” starts with Corder’s recollection of his first baseball glove and the circumstances of its Christmas appearance in the later years of the Great Depression.

Continue reading “The Mystery of Place, Memory and Rock Kicking.”