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The Cobb Legacy
Cagney Nowak is writing a novel around the 1905 shooting death of baseball legend Ty Cobb's father, William, by his mother a week before Ty was called up by the Detroit Tigers. Although she was acquitted by an all-male jury on the grounds that the incident was accidental, the townspeople of Royston, Georgia, thought otherwise. Gossip had it that Amanda Cobb, at age thirty-three - and twenty years her husband's junior - was having an affair and that William, having told her he was going out of town on business, returned to catch her with her lover. At her trial, the questions were never raised as to why she had locked her second story window on a hot August night, or why she'd shot twice - surely she knew, after firing the first barrel of her shotgun, at whom she was shooting? A boyhood friend of Ty's was first on the scene that night, claiming years later that he knew that Amanda had had a lover with her that night, and that he even knew who it was...
When Cagney begins to relive the night of the shooting in his dreams, more than a century later and in the guise of Amanda Cobb, he is led to discover his father's deepest secret. More than a mystery, The Cobb Legacy is the story of a man's efforts to connect with his dying father, a World War II veteran suffering from what today is known as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and to come to terms with his obsession over the Cobb legacy as well as his own adulterous affair and impending divorce, while doubting that love with an old friend can be his.
The Cobb Legacy is available for download for Kindle, Nook, eReaders, PCs, laptops, and smart phones.
When Cagney begins to relive the night of the shooting in his dreams, more than a century later and in the guise of Amanda Cobb, he is led to discover his father's deepest secret. More than a mystery, The Cobb Legacy is the story of a man's efforts to connect with his dying father, a World War II veteran suffering from what today is known as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and to come to terms with his obsession over the Cobb legacy as well as his own adulterous affair and impending divorce, while doubting that love with an old friend can be his.
The Cobb Legacy is available for download for Kindle, Nook, eReaders, PCs, laptops, and smart phones.
324 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 6, 2012
About the author
J. Conrad Guest
24 books47 followersJ. Conrad's first novel, January's Paradigm, was published in 1998. Current Entertainment Monthly in Ann Arbor, Michigan, wrote of January's Paradigm, "Readers will not be able to put it down." He has two other novels based on the Joe January character, One Hot January and January's Thaw.
Backstop: A Baseball Love Story In Nine Innings, was nominated a 2010 Michigan Notable Book, while the Lewis Department of Humanities at the Illinois Institute of Technology adopted it as required reading for their spring 2011 course, "Baseball: America’s Literary Pastime".
Apex Reviews hailed The Cobb Legacy, a murder mystery written around the shooting death of baseball legend Ty Cobb's father by his mother, as "... an eye-opening tale of drama, scandal, and intrigue highlighting the living, breathing history of a fatally-flawed, intrepid folk hero."
A Retrospect In Death portends not only a search for the meaning of life, but also seeks to determine why we are as we are: prewired at conception, or the product of our environment?
Set during the golden era of motor racing, 500 Miles To Go follows young Alex Król as he seeks love while making his dream to win the Indianapolis 500 come true.
A World Without Music is speculative fiction set against a backdrop of romance. Can a Gulf War veteran suffering PTSD leave behind his past to find the music that will make his life worth living?
His fiction and essays appear in various online and print publications; Google him.
A critic calls his work "Gritty, entertaining... real. Romance for the non-romantic."
Backstop: A Baseball Love Story In Nine Innings, was nominated a 2010 Michigan Notable Book, while the Lewis Department of Humanities at the Illinois Institute of Technology adopted it as required reading for their spring 2011 course, "Baseball: America’s Literary Pastime".
Apex Reviews hailed The Cobb Legacy, a murder mystery written around the shooting death of baseball legend Ty Cobb's father by his mother, as "... an eye-opening tale of drama, scandal, and intrigue highlighting the living, breathing history of a fatally-flawed, intrepid folk hero."
A Retrospect In Death portends not only a search for the meaning of life, but also seeks to determine why we are as we are: prewired at conception, or the product of our environment?
Set during the golden era of motor racing, 500 Miles To Go follows young Alex Król as he seeks love while making his dream to win the Indianapolis 500 come true.
A World Without Music is speculative fiction set against a backdrop of romance. Can a Gulf War veteran suffering PTSD leave behind his past to find the music that will make his life worth living?
His fiction and essays appear in various online and print publications; Google him.
A critic calls his work "Gritty, entertaining... real. Romance for the non-romantic."
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 14, 2012
Not having grown up American, baseball’s a foreign sport to me, and the name Tyrus Cobb is an unknown. It’s kind of sad to think his father never saw him play baseball though—sadder still to think his mother maybe killed his father. But that’s just the prequel to J. Conrad Guest’s the Cobb Legacy. The story opens 100 years later with 50-year-old Cagney in therapy trying to determine the natures of love, sex and forgiveness while taking time off from writing his great American novel on the death of the baseball player’s father.
Affairs of the heart, the art of not getting caught, the thought that goes into psyching out a team-mate, lover or opponent, all are delved into here. The author tells me baseball is a thinking man’s game, and this novel invites thought and comparisons without belaboring its points. Dialog flows slow and smooth with the scent of cigars and cooked breakfast, and the introspective cadences of long friendship and blossoming care. While the protagonist seeks a clearer understanding of women and forgiveness for betrayal, readers will find themselves learning new insights into both women and men, and perhaps into themselves.
Different genders, different generations, different assumptions and rules are revealed in this game of eternal truths played through eternal differences. Chapters switch from Cagney’s flailing present to Cobb’s wounded past, linked by the mystery of dreams and the factual numbers of baseball. “Figures never lie,” thinks Cagney, wondering another time, “Ain’t it great to be living in America? Land of the free, home of the psychoanalyst.”
The Cobb Legacy balances the pursuit of happiness with the choice for happiness, presenting lives wounded by guilt and regret, scarred by lack of communication. The present-day dialog is convincing and absorbing, like sitting in a restaurant listening while strangers meet at the table opposite, half-wondering if they’re famous, half-guilty for learning so much about their lives. The recreation of the past is authentic too and nicely interspersed throughout the tale, adding a curiously disconnected depth. Threads come together with gentle touches of fate and there’s a satisfying completeness to the tale which goes beyond past and present into eternity.
I enjoyed this book for its powerful depiction of real lives, its gentle introspection, and its forgiveness. Kind at heart, honest in execution, and hopeful in its attitude to despair, it’s a drama of family relationships and compassion, and a truly enjoyable read.
Disclosure: I bought an ecopy of this book because I’ve enjoyed others of J. Conrad Guest’s novels. I think this one’s my favorite so far.
Affairs of the heart, the art of not getting caught, the thought that goes into psyching out a team-mate, lover or opponent, all are delved into here. The author tells me baseball is a thinking man’s game, and this novel invites thought and comparisons without belaboring its points. Dialog flows slow and smooth with the scent of cigars and cooked breakfast, and the introspective cadences of long friendship and blossoming care. While the protagonist seeks a clearer understanding of women and forgiveness for betrayal, readers will find themselves learning new insights into both women and men, and perhaps into themselves.
Different genders, different generations, different assumptions and rules are revealed in this game of eternal truths played through eternal differences. Chapters switch from Cagney’s flailing present to Cobb’s wounded past, linked by the mystery of dreams and the factual numbers of baseball. “Figures never lie,” thinks Cagney, wondering another time, “Ain’t it great to be living in America? Land of the free, home of the psychoanalyst.”
The Cobb Legacy balances the pursuit of happiness with the choice for happiness, presenting lives wounded by guilt and regret, scarred by lack of communication. The present-day dialog is convincing and absorbing, like sitting in a restaurant listening while strangers meet at the table opposite, half-wondering if they’re famous, half-guilty for learning so much about their lives. The recreation of the past is authentic too and nicely interspersed throughout the tale, adding a curiously disconnected depth. Threads come together with gentle touches of fate and there’s a satisfying completeness to the tale which goes beyond past and present into eternity.
I enjoyed this book for its powerful depiction of real lives, its gentle introspection, and its forgiveness. Kind at heart, honest in execution, and hopeful in its attitude to despair, it’s a drama of family relationships and compassion, and a truly enjoyable read.
Disclosure: I bought an ecopy of this book because I’ve enjoyed others of J. Conrad Guest’s novels. I think this one’s my favorite so far.
April 24, 2016
Apex Reviews has awarded The Cobb Legacy its highest rating of 5 stars, hailing the book as “... an eye-opening tale of drama, scandal, and intrigue highlighting the living, breathing history of a fatally-flawed, intrepid folk hero.”
August 5, 2024
I don’t plan to read a book written by an author who calls women st**id b**ches because he disagrees with them on social media.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews