Cope Field

Cope Field is the second young-adult novel by Russellville (Pope County) author T. L. Simpson. Published in April 2025 by Flux, an imprint of Minnesota-based publisher North Star Editions, the book tells the story of Crawford “Craw” Cope, a promising high school pitcher in fictional Quiet County, Arkansas.

Craw’s father, Hunter Cope, is a former major league pitcher whose career was cut short by injury. Hunter grew up in Quiet County and now lives there with Craw and younger son Sutton. He is raising the boys on his own after the mysterious disappearance of his wife. Hunter’s time in the majors made him a wealthy man, and he is treated as a hero by the community, but the Cope family is deeply troubled. As the book progresses, the reader learns of Hunter’s temper and his toxic, abusive relationship with his sons.

The story opens with Craw and Hunter appearing before a judge after a confrontation between the two has left Hunter with stitches in his head. Craw is let off with community service, helping build a baseball field—the titular Cope Field—that is being paid for by his father.

While working at the field, he gets to know Hannah Flores, who has also been sentenced to community service. While Craw is privileged and popular, Hannah is a defiant, bisexual, punk-rock-loving rebel who is not accepted in conservative Quiet County. At school, she is bullied by the popular girls and shunned by the boys as a freak.

An odd-couple bond develops between the pair, and a fraught, fascinating relationship develops as Hannah, who has her own dysfunctional family situation to deal with, encourages Craw to confront the truth about his relationship with the menacing, violent Hunter.

She also brings the normally quiet Craw out of his shell a bit and turns him on to punk rock. The book’s chapters are named after songs from bands like the Ramones, Buzzcocks, Blink-182, and others. Simpson, whose illustrations are featured in the book, also created a Spotify playlist, “Crawdaddy’s Musical Education,” that replicates a list Hannah made for Craw in the novel.

A longtime reporter and editor at the Courier in Russellville, Simpson talked about the influence of punk rock on his life in an interview before Cope Field was published: “Sometimes I think that punk music really shaped who I am in a lot of ways, even though I didn’t understand all the ideologies. Punk is leftist music. It’s very political music….It helped me understand, in my very conservative upbringing, that there were other ways to look at things.”

Cope Field shares similarities with Strong Like You, Simpson’s first young-adult novel. Both are centered on sports and unhealthy male relationships, and, as in Strong Like You, there is a major twist toward the end.

Kirkus Reviews called Cope Field “a wise, emotionally rich tale of a young man winding his way through family trauma.” It landed in the Top Seven on the Kirkus list of Best Teen & YA Books of 2025 and was named a 2026 Michael L. Printz Honor Book by the Young Adult Library Services Association.

For additional information:
Clancy, Sean. “Sports, Family Trauma, Punk Rock Explored in ‘Cope Field.’” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 19, 2025. https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2025/apr/19/sports-family-trauma-punk-rock-explored-in-cope-field/ (accessed June 12, 2026).

Simpson, T. L. Cope Field. Mendota Heights, MN: Flux, 2025.

Sean Clancy
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette