Harding Ambler had it made. Although his parents were gone, his grandparents loved him unconditionally and supported him in all his endeavors. Mary Beth, Harding’s girlfriend, represented all things good in a potential mate. And then, suddenly, it all changed with an unfortunate twist of fate. Indicted as an accessory to second degree murder in a freak accident, Harding is sentenced to twelve years in prison. His dream of pursuing a career as a professional baseball player wasn’t the only thing that Harding lost. Mary Beth’s mother decided that her daughter’s reputation was too important to sacrifice to a prison convict. Harding fought back, though, by organizing a prison team and eventually gaining national recognition by playing against some of the country’s most successful teams. With the help of a mysterious stranger, Harding endured prison life and maintained his innocence while working toward the goals of his childhood, right up to the very end.

I thoroughly enjoyed Douglas Folsom’s Over the Monster. An avid Boston Red Sox fan, I related to the author’s own passion for the sport and the major league teams mentioned in this story. Many sports related novels tend to be top heavy with unnecessary trivia or unrelated detail, but I feel that Folsom utilized a successful amount of both in this tale. The inclusion of the relationship between Mary Beth and Harding added just the right amount of romance; and Bama, the “mysterious stranger”, settled well with my love for suspense. I believe Over the Monster is essentially a story of hope for readers with a need for the happy ending.

Over the Monster is a fiction novel by Douglas Folsom which focuses on the sport of baseball. Its central character is up and coming baseball star Harding Amber, who is spotted from a young age and prophesied to do great things in the sport in the future. On the very cusp of his rise to glory, however, Harding becomes the main suspect in a murder and is wrongfully sentenced to fifteen years in a prison known as the Monster. The only monster Harding ever wanted to conquer was the Green Monster Wall of Fenway Park, but now he’s struggling to overcome the hardships of prison life as an innocent man. His one constant is baseball, and he spots his chance to put a team together behind bars to try to change his life for the better again.

Author Douglas Folsom clearly knows a great deal about the sport of baseball, and I enjoyed the way that Harding’s somewhat tragic upbringing was intertwined with the history of America’s national pastime and became such a powerful and intrinsic force in his life. This makes Over the Monster a convincing read, despite its allusions to the interesting, fantastical folklore that surrounds the sport itself. Harding is portrayed as a believable character to whom readers can relate. I found the book to be a modern and intriguing combination of different genres, which made for a very engaging plot. Folsom’s biographical style of narrative also added weight and realism to his characters, which made me root for Harding from his confusing and tragic beginnings to the novel’s satisfying end.