Author of "Shoeless Joe" died
W.P. Kinsella, Canadian author whose writing inspired “Field of Dreams,” died on Friday, September 16, 2016, in Hope, British Columbia, according to multiple news sources. He was 81.
Carolyn Swayze, his literary agent, released a statement that Kinsella’s death was doctor-assisted, but provided no further details about his health, according to The Associated Press.
His novel “Shoeless Joe,” about a man who hears a voice asking him to build a baseball diamond in a corn field, was adapted into the hit film “Field of Dreams,” starring Kevin Costner.
The phrase, “if you build it, they will come,” from the novel entered popular culture after the success of the film.
The book was born from Kinsella’s lifelong love of baseball. He was fascinated with the figure of Shoeless Joe Jackson, whose career was cut short by the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Kinsella also worked his literary hero, “Catcher in the Rye” author J.D. Salinger, into the book as well. That part was altered to be a fictional author in the film, played by James Earl Jones.
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