Synopses & Reviews
The first comprehensive biography of the legendary figure who redefined American sports — arguably the greatest all-around athlete the United States has ever seen.
With clarity and a fine eye for detail, Kate Buford traces the defining moments of Jim Thorpe’s incomparable career: leading the Carlisle Indian Industrial School football team to victories against the country’s finest college teams, coached by the renowned “Pop” Warner; winning gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Olympics; defining the burgeoning sport of professional football; and playing long, often successful — and previously unexamined — years in professional baseball.
At the same time, Buford vividly depicts the difficulties Thorpe faced as a Native American, and a Native American celebrity at that, at the beginning of the 20th century: from the infamous loss of his Olympic medals — stripped from him because he had previously played professional baseball — to his struggles with alcoholism and personal misfortune, his advocacy for Native American rights while he chased a Hollywood career, and his distrust of the many hands extended to him.
Here is the story — long overdue and brilliantly told — of a complex, iconoclastic, profoundly talented man whose life encompassed both tragic limitations and truly extraordinary achievements.
Review
"Buford’s account...brims with detail, all of it relevant to the telling." Booklist
Review
"An impeccably researched biography of one of the world's greatest all-around athletes, a symbol of racial injustice and untapped potential." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Kate Buford takes a legend as American as Manifest Destiny and animates it with stunning detail and gritty truth. Native American Son is the honest and sometimes painful story of the creation and exploitation of celebrity, of hero-worship and bigotry, of athletic grandeur and human frailty. This is the real Jim Thorpe story." Rob Fleder, Executive Editor of Sports Illustrated (1986-2007)
Review
"America's first celebrity athlete —- still perhaps its greatest—has finally gotten the solid, absorbing, clear -- eyed biography that lets us cheer and weep for him, as well as understand him." Robert Lipsyte
Synopsis
Buford traces the defining moments of Jim Thorpe's incomparable career: winning gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Olympics; defining the burgeoning sport of professional football; and the difficulties he faced as a Native American.
About the Author
Kate Buford is the author of Burt Lancaster: An American Life, (New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post choice for Best Book of the Year). She has been a commentator for NPR's Morning Edition and for Marketplace. She lives in Lexington, Virginia and Westchester, New York.