Shoeless Joe

also...

I don't know when we added this, but Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella.

Yeah,

that was one year we got like, let's do a baseball book in the spring, like with baseball season coming.

Now, you contrast that with the genesis of Field of Dreams.

The movie is based on a 1978 novel called Shoeless Joe, written by W. P. Kinsella.

A fantastic book.

Yeah, The Source describes this book as an absolute literary masterpiece, deeply earnest, poetic, and steeped in magical realism.

But what's fascinating here is that the most significant change Robinson made was actually born entirely out of legal terror.

Oh, this part is crazy.

Because in the novel Shoeless Joe, Ray goes on a cross-country mission to kidnap a famous reclusive author.

But Kinsella didn't invent a character for this.

Right.

The author, W.P. Kinsella, he wrote a piece titled Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa, and it was just for an anthology.

It was this very localized, you know, magical realism concept.

Just a small conceptual piece.

And that vulnerability is crucial to the creative process.

With Kesnick acting as a structural guide, Kinsella wrote the entire manuscript.

Which would eventually be titled Shoeless Joe.

Right.