The greatest sports stars characterize their times. They also help to tell us who we are.
John McEnroe, at his best and worst, told us the story of the 1980s. His improvised quest for tennis perfection, and his inability to find a way to grow up, dramatized the volatile self-absorption of a generation. His matches were open therapy sessions, and they allowed us all to be armchair shrinks.
In this book, Tim Adams sets out to explore what it might have meant to be John McEnroe during the turbulent 1980s, and in his subsequent lives, and to define exactly what it is that we want from our sporting heroes: how we require them to play out our own dramas, and how the best of them provide an intensity by which we can measure our own lives.
At the heart of this book are two fascinating characters—McEnroe and Bjorn Borg—and the extraordinary rivalry that defined them, a rivalry as compelling and dramatic as Ali and Foreman or Spassky and Fischer. Their great Wimbledon match of July 5, 1980—the central event in Adams’s narrative—was, as he writes, “a confrontation between two highly developed states of mind: a struggle between extreme consciousness and an absolutely studied containment of consciousness.”
It’s a book that’s “full of pleasures,” according to the London Sunday Times, and will appeal to any tennis fan or serious sports reader.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From the Inside Flap:
A fan?s-eye-view of one of tennis? most notorious stars.
The greatest sports stars characterize their times. They also help to tell us who we are. John McEnroe, at his best and worst, encapsulated the story of the eighties. His improvised quest for tennis perfection and his inability to find a way to grow up dramatized the volatile self-absorption of a generation. His matches were open therapy sessions and they allowed us all to be armchair shrinks.
Tim Adams sets out to explore what it might have meant to be John McEnroe during those times and to define exactly what it is we want from our sporting heroes: how we require them to play out our own dramas; how the best of them provide an intensity that we can measure our own lives by.
Talking to McEnroe, his friends and rivals, and drawing on a range of references, Tim Adams presents a book that is both a portrait of the most colourful player ever to pick up a racket and an original study of the idea of sporting obsession.
About the Author:
Tim Adams has been an editor at Granta and the literary editor of The Observer, for which he now writes full-time. He lives in London with his wife and two daughters.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherCrown
- Publication date2005
- ISBN 10 1400081475
- ISBN 13 9781400081479
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages176
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