Father's Day Event Highlights Fenway

Few themes inspire writers like loss and redemption. And if those writers happen to be Red Sox fans, their creative repertoire is rich indeed.

Local writer, Adam Pachter, and three fellow contributors to Pachter's 2005 anthology Fenway Fiction explored these themes – in baseball, relationships and in life – in a Father's Day reading from their collected works at Jam'n Java Thursday evening.

Fenway Fiction: Short Stories from Red Sox Nation was published following the Sox' historic World Series win and includes 18 fictional accounts written by novelists, playwrights and award-winning writers who all proudly call themselves Red Sox fans. The collection was followed in 2007 by Further Fenway Fiction, for which Pachter again served as editor and contributor.

While baseball and the Sox are common threads throughout the stories, the wide-ranging pieces touch upon more universal themes. "Often what happened on the field is the least interesting thing in these stories," said Pachter, who read from "Green Monster," his tale from the first anthology.

Pachter's touching account tells the story of a son's discovery of his father's dementia as they watch a Red Sox game. "They are multigenerational stories," says Pachter, who received fiction submissions from writers across the country. "They cover the rise and fall of the Red Sox as they coincide with the lives of the characters."

Rachel Solomon, a writer whose work appears in both anthologies, sees baseball as a metaphor for relationships, a theme she explores on her baseball-loving blog, Mannyshadow.blogspot.com, and in her two Fenway stories.

"Baseball games have a beginning, middle and end and are filled with joy, emotion and heartbreak – just like relationships," Solomon says. Her award-winning story, "The Shadow of Manny Ramirez," muses about one woman's quest to host Manny Ramirez at a family barbeque, while hinting at themes of marital discord and unrest.

Following the popularity – and auspicious timing – of Fenway Fiction, Pachter wondered what more the writers of Red Sox nation might have to say on the subject. Fortunately, he found "that victory could be as inspirational as defeat. In fact, victory has taken the sequel, Further Fenway Fiction, in exciting and previously impossible directions," he says.

Contributor David Desjardins, an Arlington resident and editor at the Boston Globe, proved the point as he read from his story, "The Sixth Game." Desjardins, a lifelong Red Sox devotee, wrote his story in the late-1980's at what some consider the height of the Sox agony.

"I wrote the story and put it away in a drawer," Desjardins said. "Years later, I finally found a home for it in this collection." Pachter welcomed Desjardin's piece that tells of a young man whose real life love affair becomes enmeshed with his love of the game.

Arlington writer Tracy Miller Geary's award-winning piece "October 2004," featured in Further Fenway Fiction, provides an emotional resonance that complements the eclectic collection. Miller Geary read aloud from her fictional account of a family whose enduring love for the Red Sox helps them survive a tragic loss.

Has the wellspring for Red Sox literature been exhausted yet? Not according to Pachter, who is seeking a publisher Final Fenway Fiction, his third and final installment that takes a broad look at Fenway fandom from the perspective of different communities. "The Dominican communities that love the Sox have a different experience than those communities that got involved because of Dice-K," he says. "We maintain a diversity of historical periods and perspectives."

"The best stories here touch something beyond baseball and have a lasting resonance," Pachter says. "So pull up a chair, Red Sox fans, and enjoy another dose of Fenway Fiction."