The New Rules of the
Game
I
dont read much fiction, so I was disinclined to read the
manuscript of a new novel that arrived in the mail a few months ago.
Id never heard of the
author. But
the story was
set in my home town, Ypsilanti, Michigan, and I gave it a try, expecting to
be bored after a chapter or two.
I found myself still reading it in
the wee hours. It was one of the most emotionally grueling stories
Id ever read. But as soon as I woke up in the morning I had to finish
it. The author asked for my endorsement; after reading it, I wanted to give
copies to all my friends. It was that powerful.
The book, Blind Baseball:
A Fathers War, has now been published by AuthorHouse in
Bloomington, Indiana (www.authorhouse.com). Its not about
baseball; its about a divorce, and much more. The title is an odd but
apt metaphor explained late in the book. The author, Allen Green, writes
with such passion its tempting to believe the tale is
autobiographical, but it isnt.
The storys hero, Barry
Ballinger, has, to say the least, a troubled marriage. His wife, Sal, serves
him with divorce papers, empties their bank account, and spitefully runs
up huge debts in his name. She also means to take custody of their six
children. And thats just the beginning of her campaign to ruin,
humiliate, and utterly destroy him.
Barry goes to a lawyer, who tells
him that under Michigans no-fault divorce law his chances of
getting custody of the children are almost nil. Originally intended to level
the playing field and make the dissolution of marriage as painless as
possible, the law actually has the opposite effect: It gives women like
Sal, who know how to play the angles, huge legal advantages. It also
serves the interests of predatory men, like the sponging lovers Sal brings
into the home once Barry has been expelled. The horror is that Barry is
punished for trying to be a responsible father.
Sal is none too bright, but she
has a shrewd instinct for power. With the aid of her lawyer a
barracuda at law, in Barrys phrase she turns
all the resources of the state against Barry. Through her machinations and
false accusations, he loses his children, his property, his livelihood, his
reputation, and very nearly his sanity. At one point he actually finds
himself committed to a mental institution. He seems to be baffled at
every turn. For a while his situation seems hopeless.
![[Breaker quote: The state and the family]](2004breakers/040826.gif) Blind Baseball is
to domestic law what
1984 is to politics. It vividly shows how bureaucratic
social services can be perverted into tools of raw power
over the unsuspecting individual. At first Barry naively assumes the basic
fairness of the system; he is quickly disabused by the successive
hammer-blows of Sals cunning malice.
What makes this more than a
mere divorce novel is Greens grasp of the systematic nature of the
forces Barry faces. Slowly he comes to realize that hes up against
something more than a flaw in the system: This is just how the system is
designed to work.
But unlike Orwells
hapless hero, Winston Smith, Barry is no passive victim. As he
comprehends that the real enemy is much bigger than Sal, and as Sal
herself overplays her hand, he manages to achieve a limited victory
though only after the turmoil has caused him and his kids
enormous stress and pain.
Many fathers can attest that
Barrys plight is neither unique nor exaggerated. The laws,
institutions, and state agents that nearly crush him are real, and this is
how they operate in countless cases every day. Some fathers, despairing
of justice under the law, kidnap their own children and disappear.
The book isnt entirely
bleak. Barry receives encouragement and wisdom from his old mentor, Art
Smith, who explains that the state is dedicated to destroying families.
The root of Barrys crisis is the materialist philosophy that shapes
the laws, creating an unnatural balance of power. Once he understands
this, Barry is able to pull himself together and salvage his and his
childrens lives. And Sals malignity finally carries its own
punishment.
Blind Baseball is in
the end a comment not only on marriage and divorce, but on the
irrationality of modern law itself. Barrys bitter wit adds both wry
amusement and sharp insight to a wrenching drama of the soul against the
state.
Joseph Sobran
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