More on: Valerie Sayers

IN THE EARLY DAYS OF INTEGRATION, when only white girls tried out for cheerleader, our elections were a cross between small-town participatory democracy, Soviet-style anointment of the chosen, and the Miss America Pageant. We sat rapt in the bleachers while the candidates cartwheeled in front of the whole school, flashing their white panties. Then we…

THE FIFTIES. I don’t remember much—I was a small child—but I do know that fear was always buzzing in the background, like static from a transistor radio: a jangly, jazzy fear, not altogether unhappy. The day I discover I’m a freak of nature, the thrill runs from my bellybutton to my throat. We’ve come to…

Art and the Religious Sense To say that someone is “only human” is to say two things at once. We mean that person is flawed—and that this condition is no more than we should expect. Yet for all our awareness of human frailty and venality, we are haunted by visions of human flourishing, fullness rather…

The summer issue of Image includes a novel excerpt from Valerie Sayers. She answered our questions about baseball, the novel, and the allure of characters who are so bad they’re good.   Image: You seem to be quite a baseball fan, like a number of American writers past and present. Do you think there’s a…

BABE O’LEARY IS GOING up to the ballpark and it’s probably going to kill her. Well, there are worse ways to die. Getting downstairs is slow torment, one step at a time so the kneecaps won’t scream. She shifts her weight as if it’s a sack of laundry. Before she deals with the subway steps…