Hard choices, self-expression are themes of lawyer’s first novel

High school is a time of difficult decisions — especially for teenagers during the tense years of Birmingham in the 1960s. Mark Hart grew up in the midst of racial integration and the Vietnam War, and this experience inspired him to write his first novel.

Hart, an insurance lawyer at Hand Arendall LLC, recently published “Fielder’s Choice.” The novel centers on the story of Brad, an 18-year-old baseball player trying to get a baseball scholarship to avoid working in the Birmingham steel mills. His life is complicated, however, by the draft for the Vietnam War and the beginning of school and neighborhood integration. Brad must figure out where he stands on these divisive issues and how they will affect his future.

“He has to make some choices, and they’re hard choices. He knows whichever way he goes, he’s going to lose something,” Hart said. “Is he going to go his way and risk alienating his coach, whom he needs, or is he going to stuff how he wants to live his life to get along and try to get the scholarship?”

“Fielder’s Choice” is a novel 10 years in the making, as Hart had to find time to write between working and raising his three children. The desire to write a book, however, has been with him for decades.

“I’ve always wanted to write a book, but it seemed like some kind of frivolous thing. You know, you’re supposed to go to college and get a degree and get a job in the real world,” Hart said. “Since I was 10 years old I’ve wanted to write a book. So I finally just sat down and started on it, and it was a great adventure.”

In “Fielder’s Choice,” Hart had to find a way to accurately portray the feelings and internal processes of an 18-year-old boy. Hart had his own experiences to draw upon, but it took a while to create an authentic voice for a young man in the midst of internal and external conflict.

“The challenge is getting it out of your head and onto the paper in a way that’s meaningful for your reader,” Hart said. “As an author, we see it so clearly in our minds and know what everybody’s thinking. The challenge is to write it so the reader gets it and so it’s enjoyable.”

Hart said he has received positive reactions to his book, including from mothers who said it helped them understand their teenage sons. He hopes that “Fielder’s Choice” is honest but encouraging for readers as they face difficult choices in their own lives.

“I hope readers will get the courage to pursue their own path, to live who they are in life and be themselves,” Hart said. “As part of doing that, I think they need to understand that sometimes there’s a cost with that. That sounds all rosy and everything, but if you really do go off on the pathway to live fully yourself and fully self-expressed in your life, there can be costs from other people, and paradoxically the biggest costs can be from those who love you and are closest to you.”

Hart would like to be a full-time writer after he retires and is currently working on a second novel, which he described as a Kurt Vonnegut-inspired satire about nostalgia. For now, “Fielder’s Choice” is available on Amazon and at the Little Professor Book Center.