Combine Little League baseball, two boys who love the game, and a family tragedy and you have the basis of Wendy Wan-Long Shang’s new book “The Way Home Looks Now.”
The book set in 1972, is divided into two, time periods: “Before” and “After.” In the Before, Peter Lee and his older brother, Nelson, loved
everything about baseball. They listened to the games on radio, played it, and cheered for both Taiwan and the United States in the 1972 Little League World Series.
Then Peter’s older brother was killed in a car crash. Now the “After” is filled with grieving and distant parents. All of this changes when Peter’s dad, Ba, volunteers to coach his Little League team. Peter wonders how baseball can have any meaning without his brother, but gradually he begins to rethink the game, his father’s knowledge of the sport, and everything else in his life.
“The Way Home Looks Now” has been well reviewed by many journals. Set in the turbulent seventies, the author combines a detailed sports story, a history lesson, and a tale of a grieving Asian-American family.