Mark Kriegel details Namath's journey from steeltown pool halls to the upper reaches of American celebrityand beyond. He renders Namath as an athlete and a man, a brave champion and a wounded soul. [Viking Books]
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Booklist Wes Lukowsky
An intelligent, carefully crafted portrait of an American sports icon and an insightful look at how the world of celebrity works. [July 2004, p.1810]
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Outstanding
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Chicago Sun-Times Henry Kisor
Always solid, often brilliant... This is a life-and-times book, and Kriegel is as good on the times as he is the life.
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Outstanding
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Chicago Tribune Dan McGrath
As sports biographies go, this is on a level with David Maraniss' book on Vince Lombardi and Richard Ben Cramer's on Joe DiMaggio. And that's the big leagues.
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Outstanding
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Los Angeles Times Allen Barra
Irreverent and highly entertaining.
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
Kriegel has written a remarkable book: a feel-good sports story still abundant with insight and social commentary.
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Outstanding
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San Francisco Chronicle Mark Kriegel
Kriegel does a magnificent job of getting across Namath's greatness as a player and his natural capacity as a celebrity.
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Favorable
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The New York Times Book Review Joe Queenan
Excellent, if not especially original.
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Favorable
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Kirkus Reviews
Namath was no angel, thank goodness, but this evocative portrait shows him at play in the fields of magic.
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Favorable
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The Nation Gene Seymour
Kriegel's prose, jazzy in the best sense, swaggers along with its subject.
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Mixed
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The New York Times Janet Maslin
A colorful, detailed and essentially affectionate portrait. It follows the standard sports-hero trajectory, including hackneyed, pointless memories of the kid's early years.
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Mixed
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Entertainment Weekly Gilbert Cruz
Thick on football minutiae, Namath should appeal to sports fans of a certain age and to all those older women who once fell in love with Joe.
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Unfavorable
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Washington Post Jonathan Yardley
Though Kriegel finds things about Joe Namath to like and even to admire, and though he somehow manages to keep "hero" out of his subtitle, at its core this is another exercise in balloon-puncturing...At times it makes for modestly amusing reading, but it is rarely pleasant.
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