Tags: I see it this way!

The third novel in the Sticky Wicket trilogy by Ewart Rouse has just been released. What follows is a press release and information to order the book: When immigrants from the West Indies, India, Pakistan and England settle in the United States, they want to play the game of their youth: cricket. The obstacles they face are the central theme of Sticky Wicket, Vol. 3, Watkins’ Finest Inning, the latest novel in a trilogy by Ewart Rouse, a Trinidad-born journalist and educator. The Watkins in the title is Freddie Watkins, a Trinidad native and the long-time manager of Fernwood Cricket Club in the Northeast, who comes out of retirement to do battle with an anti-cricket, pro-baseball establishment. However, in seeking to preserve a way of life for his fellow immigrants, Watkins must fight his own battle with his very religious wife, Gina, who wants him to quit the sport and accompany her to church on Sundays. “The trilogy,” Rouse explained, “seeks to shed light, in a humorous way, on immigrants from cricketing countries and on a sport which, although it predates the American Revolution, generally is seen as something of a novelty by Americans.” The first novel in the series, Sticky Wicket, Vol. 1, Watkins At Bat, was released in 2007 to coincide with the Cricket World Cup in the West Indies. The second, Sticky Wicket, Vol. 2, Watkins’ Fights Back, was published last year. “Sticky Wicket,” said Sandra Améde, a Tobago-born teacher in New York, “reaches across boundaries, bringing people together in a game of cricket. It addresses the longings, the challenges and the nostalgia associated with migrating from one's own country, yet desiring to hold on to the things of childhood days that we cherish.” She described her reaction to Volume 1 this way: “I was there. I lived in that book, through every scene and episode until I was through. I laughed out loud on the trains and buses and between classes. My students said, "Ms. Amede` you're really enjoying that book.” Myrtle Aberdeen, a Trinidad-born educator who also teaches in New York, said of the first volume: “Though the novel may, at first, seem simply to entail a game of cricket, it embraces much more. The theme of power permeates it: power in the home, power on the field; power for the field.” To order autographed copies, send an e-mail to: StickyWicket100@verizon.net