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Under the Cover with Brad Smith, author of Billy Crawford’s Double Play
Baseball and politics may not seem to share much common ground, but for author Brad Smith in his latest novel, Billy Crawford’s Double Play (Wolsak & Wynn), they’re two sides of the same coin. In this edition of Under the Cover, Brad speaks to how he brings his two favourite spectator sports together in a sharp, character-driven story about passion, ambition, and the messy in-between.
Writing Billy Crawford’s Double Play was a labour of love for me, as it combines elements of my two favourite spectator sports—baseball and politics. One might think at first glance that the two don’t have a whole lot in common, but in fact parallels do exist. They are both games, both entertaining as hell, both can break your heart. But there are differences between the two. One can be frustrating, lowdown, duplicitous and just plain nasty.
The other is baseball.
In Billy Crawford’s Double Play, we have two protagonists who fit the two sides of the coin perfectly. Carroll Miller, real estate developer, is manipulative, sneaky, money-obsessed, narcissistic and about as deep as the dimples on the golf ball he hits. By the way, he also cheats at golf; no surprise there.
Billy Crawford, on the other hand, is a simple man. Simple in the purest sense of the word. When he was a kid, all he ever cared about was playing baseball. Now pushing forty, all he still cares about is playing baseball.
I wanted to create a story that pitted these two unlikely characters against each other. They couldn’t be more different in their core values. Billy doesn’t care much for money; if at the end of the day he has enough in his pocket for a couple of cold beers and an order of chicken wings, he’s content. Carroll Miller cares only for money and cannot understand anyone who doesn’t. Money for him justifies his very existence. There is a bit of a parallel there between him and Billy. Just as Carroll can’t imagine his life without his millions, Billy can’t imagine his without baseball.
Since the two have nothing in common, ordinarily they would never enter each other’s orbit. But Carroll just happens to own the baseball team Billy plays for. That makes for an interesting dilemma when Carroll approaches Billy with a proposition. Or more precisely, with an ultimatum. Carroll tells Billy that in order to keep his job with the team, he needs to agree to participate in a scheme Carroll has hatched in order to get himself elected to office. Under any other circumstance, Billy Crawford would rather eat a bucket of worms than fall in line with the slippery Miller. But this is different. This is about the game Billy has dedicated his life to playing.
A life that is suddenly no longer simple.
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Brad Smith is an award winning novelist and screenwriter, born and raised in southern Ontario. Billy Crawford’s Double Play is his fifteenth novel. His 2019 novel – The Return of Kid Cooper – won the Spur Award for Best Western Traditional Novel from the Western Writers of America. His novels One-Eyed Jacks and Copperhead Road were shortlisted for the Dashiell Hammett Prize. He adapted his book All Hat to a feature film, starring Keith Carradine and Luke Kirby. He now lives in a ninety-year-old farmhouse near the north shore of Lake Erie, where he tinkers respectively on his vintage cars and his golf swing.
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You can purchase a copy of Billy Crawford’s Double Play right here (or link through to your favourite independent bookstore to order one!).
For more Under the Cover, click here.
