McCurdle’s Arm: A Fiction

(forthcoming July 16, 2024 (Canada), and August 6, 2024 (US and abroad)

McCurdle’s front teeth were in the back of his throat. They’d been sent rattling back there by a smoker that’d flown up and in on him. He’d tracked it fine emerging from the pitcher’s hand until sunlight danced off some lustred surface beyond centrefield and the orb went from visible to invisible as though a sash had been pulled down before his eyes. Then the godawful impact, like a kicking horse. He sprawled in the dust, staring up at the tranquil blue sky.

Southern Ontario, 1892. The Ashburnham Pine Groves are a semi-professional baseball club in the South Western Ontario Base-Ball Players’ Association, sponsored by the Grafton Brewery, makers of Ashburnham’s Famous Pine Grove Ale. When sober the Ashburnham players are an impressive group, though coarse and occasionally cretinous, and as with any collection of men, not without their peculiarities. Robert James McCurdle is one of their most formidable pitchers, though he understands that his body won’t let him perform at a high level forever. McCurdle’s Arm is an account of a particular man in his particular time, playing a version of baseball devoid of the comforts of the modern game, rife with violence, his employment always precarious. Against this backdrop McCurdle must choose between his love for the game and his desire to be reunited with the woman who loves him.

The Only Way Is the Steady Way: Baseball, Ichiro, and How We Watch the Game (2021)

“Andrew Forbes’s love of baseball is the most honest and difficult kind: clear-eyed, thoughtful, willing to see the flaws along with the beauty. This book is a beauty. Through the lens of Ichiro Suzuki’s magnificent career, Forbes examines our potential and our prejudices, helping us see the times that make the game and the game that makes the times.”

—Scott O’Connor, author of Zero Zone and Untouchable

Lands and Forests (2019)

“Warning: There are floods and fires in here. And life and death struggles. And long journeys. And near misses. The weather, like love, is always uncertain. But there is no need to fear. Andrew Forbes will get us through. He knows the way. These stories are elemental, wise, and beautiful.”

–Alexander MacLeod, Scotiabank Giller Prize-nominated author of Light Lifting

The Utility of Boredom: Baseball Essays (2016)

“Baseball is a welcome obsession of mine, a comfort. Reading The Utility of Boredom by Andrew Forbes fed that obsession beautifully, warmly. It glows. He writes of baseball as sanctuary, baseball in both general terms and specifics—from the feeling of walking into a ballpark on a summer day to Vin Scully’s perfect description of a cloud. He invites us to get on our tiptoes and peek over the fence, smell the grass, hear the crack of the bat. He respects the slow-glory of the game, he loves the game, he’s really good at this, and I absolutely trust him with my baseball-heart.”

— Leesa Cross-Smith, author of Whiskey and Ribbons

What You Need (2015)

“Andrew Forbes’ stories in What You Need are plainly spoken, his characters ending up in bar fights, playing high school sports and building thermonuclear devices in their garages. He has a gift for balancing good old-fashioned narratives with surprising implosions of fate. Voice and details are his strong point. Whether they’re digging up a dead friend or puzzling over their daughter’s ability to walk through walls, his characters are easy to relate to, they are true to themselves and they engage the reader, who can’t wait to turn the page. What You Need is insightful and intelligent, sharp and deep as bone.”

— Danuta Gleed Literary Award jury statement