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62
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
50/100Critics
74/100Scholars
Author:
David Maraniss
Publisher:
Simon & Schuster
Date:
August 9, 2022
Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. He won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, was an All-American football player at the Carlisle Indian School, in the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and played major league baseball for the New York Giants. But despite his colossal skills, Thorpe's life was a struggle against the odds. As a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, he encountered duplicitous authorities who turned away from him when their reputations were at risk.
What The Reviewers Say
... goes beyond the myth and into the guts of Thorpe’s life, using extensive research, historical nuance and bittersweet honesty to tell the story of a gifted and complicated man.
... exhaustively researched.
... showcases Mr. Maraniss’s abilities as an indefatigable researcher and a deft prose stylist. But at times the march through Thorpe’s days is simply exhausting, whether because of the author’s self-described 'obsession' with his subject or his unwillingness to leave out even minor details that he has so carefully unearthed. While Thorpe’s life is fascinating, poignant and instructive, the book drags in many places, and thus some readers might find it hard to reach the finish line, which comes only at the end of a whopping 25 (!) page epilogue.
As David Maraniss artfully demonstrates in the biography Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe, Thorpe was both puffed and pilloried.
