Synopses & Reviews
From 1919 to 1927, Jack Dempsey was the heavyweight champion of the world. With his fierce good looks and matchless dedication to the kill, he was a fighter perfectly suited to the Roaring '20s. In A Flame of Pure Fire, award-winning and renowned sports writer Roger Kahn, a personal friend of Dempsey's, tells the extraordinary story of a man and a country growing to maturity in a blaze of strength and exuberance. With passion and precision, Kahn not only chronicles the thrilling, brutal bouts of the "Manassa Mauler" but also illustrates how the wild and raucous 1920s shaped Dempsey, and how the champ, in turn, left an indelible mark on sports and American history. An accomplished and insightful observation on how sports can measure a society's evolution, Roger Kahn finds the heart of America in the story of the most famous athlete of his time, the man John Lardner once called "a flame of pure fire, at last a hero."
Review
"One doesn't have to be a fan of boxing to be enthralled by this story of a nice guy who didn't finish last."and#8212;The New Yorker
"An intoxicating panoply of legends and heroes, surely one of the most solid and delightful sporting histories of recent times."and#8212;Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Synopsis
An award-winning sports writer and friend of Dempsey's tells the extraordinary story the heavyweight champion of the world from 1919 to 1927. Kahn not only chronicles the brutal bouts of the "Manassa Mauler" but also illustrates how the raucous 1920s shaped Dempsey and the mark he left on American history. Two 8-page photo inserts.
Synopsis
Jack Dempsey was perfectly suited to the time in which he fought, the time when the United States first felt the throb of its own overwhelming power. For eight years and two months after World War I, Dempsey, with his fierce good looks and matchless dedication to the kill, was heavyweight champion of the world. A Flame of Pure Fire is the extraordinary story of a man and a country growing to maturity in a blaze of strength and exuberance that nearly burned them to ash. Hobo, roughneck, fighter, lover, millionaire, movie star, and, finally, a gentleman of rare generosity and sincerity, Dempsey embodied an America grappling with the confusing demands of preeminence. Dempsey lived a life that touched every part of the American experience in the first half of the twentieth century. Roger Kahn, one of our preeminent writers about the human side of sport, has found in Dempsey a subject that matches his own manifold talents. A friend of Dempsey's and an insightful observer of the ways in which sport can measure a society's evolution, Kahn reaches a new and exciting stage in his acclaimed career with this book. In the story of a man John Lardner called "a flame of pure fire, at last a hero," Roger Kahn finds the heart of America.
About the Author
Widely acclaimed as the greatest baseball writer of his generation,
Roger Kahn is most famous for his modern classic,
The Boys of Summer, which James Michener called the finest American book on sports. Kahn is the author of 16 books, most recently
The Head Game,
Baseball Seen from the Pitchersand#8217; Mound. His magazine articles won five Dutton Best Magazine Story Awards and his book
The Era: When the Yankees Dodgers and Giants Ruled the World was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Born in Brooklyn, he now lives in Stone Ridge, N.Y. with his wife, the psychotherapist Katharine Colt Johnson.