Wade Rouse and his father, Ted, were St. Louis Cardinals fans through and through. They spent time together watching games on television and in the stands, swinging between optimism and pessimism as the seasons went by.

However, Wade and Ted had a fraught relationship. Ted, a tough-talking, hard-drinking Ozark engineer, was never supportive of his creative, thoughtful, non-athletic son. After many hours of baseball practice in the yard, Ted never even attended one of Wade’s Little League games. Wade quit baseball, and the tensions between the two continued to grow, reaching what seemed like a nadir when Wade declared journalism as his major in college, but peaking even higher when he came out as gay. Over the years there is anger, misunderstanding, silence and even cruelty. And there are the Cardinals.

"This weighty account is often made more digestible with humor and lightness --- a fine balance of a profound and difficult personal examination, and a readable and welcoming writing style."

In MAGIC SEASON, Wade recalls his complicated relationship with his father, and reflects on fathers and sons, mothers and sons, marriage, identity, forgiveness and acceptance.

The Rouse family suffered great loss when Wade’s older brother died in an accident, which impacted them in various ways. Wade’s mother, an open-minded and open-hearted woman who gave him unconditional love, died of cancer in 2009. Ted’s health started to decline; his drinking increased, and he developed a dependency on prescription painkillers. Then he was diagnosed with dementia.

After moving him to a new, wheelchair-accessible house on family land, Wade is able to help care for his father. He asks himself why he even feels the need to do so. Is it out of guilt, obligation or love? The answer is complicated, and one that he wrestles with throughout the book. Readers find Ted almost unrelentingly mean to his son. Still, Wade continues to seek out the good in his father, the lessons he believes his father is trying to impart to him, and the fears, sorrows and anxieties that his father has never been able to articulate.

Despite Ted’s prophecies, Wade became a successful writer and a good partner for his husband, Gary. But a lifetime of often vicious proclamations and mercurial actions from his father are never quite out of his heart or mind. In caring for his dying father and writing this book, Wade is able to come to terms with their relationship and his own place in his family. Instead of forgiving and forgetting, he takes his mother’s advice to “remember and reconcile.”

Framed inning by inning during Game 4 of the 2015 National League Division Series between the Cardinals and the Cubs, MAGIC SEASON contemplates and considers some very challenging realities, and does so with an uncommon grace and honesty. This weighty account is often made more digestible with humor and lightness --- a fine balance of a profound and difficult personal examination, and a readable and welcoming writing style.