Blockade Billy
Posted: April 8, 2010
Category: Books

The book tells the story of William Blakely who in 1957 arrives to the New Jersey Titans as a stand in for an injured player. There’s no one that really believes that Billy will make a deferens but boy are they wrong. Billy turns out to be a very good player and most of the time he does what he’s supposed to do and the team accepts him even though he is a bit strange. He talks to himself, refers to himself in third person and most of the time appears to be totally clueless to the fans admiration of him. But Billy has a dark secret. A secret that in the end erases him from all history books and, as his team, today he is forgotten.
As usually King is great in telling a simple story. When I read about Billy’s dark secret prior to reading the book I got the impression that the secret would be somewhat supernatural. That he had sold his soul to the devil in return for being a great baseball player or something in those lines. That is not the case however. Nothing in the book is supernatural. It could in fact be a true story.
The story is told first hand by George Grantham, or Granny as everyone calls him, to none other than Stephen King himself. King’s role in the story is very small though. The only mention of him is that Granny addresses him as Mr. King when he tells the story but that is it. A rather nice twist if you ask me. I read the book in two sittings (had it not been late at night I would have read it all in one) and one or two sittings it probably the best way to read this book. It’s short and has no natural breakpoints or chapters so it’s really a one-read-story if there ever was one.

Lilja's final words about Blockade Billy:
With the book you also get a baseball card of Billy and even though I have no clue to who’s on the picture he does look familiar don't you think?