Being John McEnroe

by TimAdams (Author)

New
Paperback
2004
$13.71

The greatest sports stars characterise their times. They also help to tell us who we are. John McEnroe, at his best and worst, told us the story of the eighties. His improvised quest for tennis perfection, and his inability to find a way to grow up, dramatised 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 in his subsequent lives, 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 by which we can measure our own lives.

Synopsis

The greatest sports stars characterise their times. They also help to tell us who we are. John McEnroe, at his best and worst, told us the story of the eighties. His improvised quest for tennis perfection, and his inability to find a way to grow up, dramatised 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 in his subsequent lives, 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 by which we can measure our own lives.

$13.71

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
Edition: UK ed.
Publisher: Yellow Jersey
Published: 03 Jun 2004
ISBN 10: 0224069624
ISBN 13: 9780224069625
Book Overview: A wonderful exploration of sporting obsession, as well as a vivid portrait of an extraordinary tennis personality and the era that shaped him.

Media Reviews

Terrific...On one level, it's about the author's fascination with a tennis player. But it's much more than this; it's a book about how the world has changed in our lifetime -- William Leith * New Statesman *
A beautiful little book * Daily Express *
Tim Adams is one of the best of our new sportswriters * Observer *
Inspiringly in touch with what McEnroe was and what he meant -- Giles Smith * Daily Telegraph *

Author Bio

Tim Adams has been an editor at Granta and literary editor of the Observer, where he now writes full-time. An occasional tennis correspondent and scratchy parks player, he once lost in straight sets to Martin Amis and served a whole game of double faults to Annabel Croft. He lives in London.