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, including The Head Game, Baseball Seen from the Pitchers' 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.

Reviews

"The fact that Jack Dempsey was one of America's preeminent celebrities in the 1920s was the result of both the man himself and the special decade in which he flourished. That is why Roger Kahn devotes almost equal attention to the two phenomena. Together, they give us a brilliantly written picture of a champion and his era."--Ring Lardner, Jr. --

This look at Jack Dempsey's life falls short of hagiography but is still an extremely friendly biography. Kahn (The Boys of Summer), who became friends with the former heavyweight great after Dempsey's championship seasons, takes care to show that DempseyÄknown as an animal in the ringÄwas otherwise a genial, principled man. He also presses his point (rather too hard) that Dempsey was the major icon of the Jazz Age, reminding readers on several occasions, for example, that Babe Ruth was neither as popular nor as well paid as Dempsey; that Gene Tunney, Dempsey's two-time conqueror, was an intellectual poseur and a dancer and runner (not a warrior); and that Charles Lindbergh was a virulent anti-Semite. Still, this is a readable look at a sports figure who has been the subject of surprisingly few books. Recommended for all public libraries.ÄJim G. Burns, Ottumwa P.L., IA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.