Cardboard Book Views

General Goods

“Cardboard Gods is more than just a book. It is something that I lived and live still. It could be my brother and me in that photograph, or my two sons, VW bus and all. Cardboard Gods awakened feelings in me that I have long suppressed. It is a growth novel, like The Catcher in the Rye. People, especially people who love baseball, will carry this book with them everywhere.” —Bill Lee, bestselling author of The Wrong Stuff, Red Sox legend, baseball bat entrepreneur

“To say Josh Wilker writes beautifully about baseball, or boyhood—as he does—is to halve his ample achievement. Like Frederick Exley’s A Fan’s Notes, Cardboard Gods nails the worshipful contortions and rueful ecstasies of fandom, and its pure dexterity with memory amounts to an athletic event of its own. Evocative, painful, affectionate and funny, Cardboard Gods is astonishing. Like Henry Aaron’s home run ball described herein, Wilker’s book wears its own halo.” —Matthew Specktor, author of That Summertime Sound

“We never went bug-eyed over X-Boxes and flickering computers connected to the ‘net. We lost ourselves in baseball cards, our childhoods forever marked and remembered through through the greats and goofballs spread across our bedroom floors. In Josh Wilker’s wonderful book, Cardboard Gods, he reconnects all of us through those snarky, smart-ass and often confusing days of our youth. Thank goodness Mrs. Wilker never threw out those cards. Josh always knew they would be worth something.” —Adrian Wojnarowski, bestselling author of The Miracle of St. Anthony

“Without ever stating them explicitly, the book asks serious questions of fandom. What does it mean to make imaginary heroes of ordinary men, to make a religion of the statistics on the backs of baseball cards? At what point does fandom cross from being an interest to a lifestyle? As the book progresses, and Wilker struggles to at once free himself from the grip of the Cardboard Gods, and come to terms with his permanent seat at their altar, these questions become so poignant and pressing that it becomes almost impossible for the reader to continue without thinking these questions through for him or herself.g” —Eric Nusbaum, pitchersandpoets.com