Books to consider before the end of summer ...
(To make it easy for you to buy any of these books if you are interested, I made each image linked to buying the book right on amazon.com or bookshop.org. I do get a commission if you use the links in this post.)
Tiger, Tiger: His Life, as It's Never Been Told Before
By James Patterson
Hachette Book Group (2024)
James Patterson has made a career out of writing fiction and thrillers, with 114 New York Times best-selling novels. It is less known that he has authored 15 non-fiction books, including topics such as Jeffrey Epstein, John Lennon and former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez. I don’t read novels but have read and enjoyed the aforementioned three biographies, so I was eager to dig into Patterson’s book on Tiger Woods.
The reader doesn’t get short-changed. This is a well-researched, well-organized, well-written synopsis of Tiger’s life, and of course Patterson’s prose is terrific. His habit of short chapters — there are 87 in this book — can be a bit off-putting, but it gives the reader an easier place to break when you just have time for a few pages.
Patterson did not interview Woods for this book. I’m not sure how many people, if any, he actually interviewed, because there is no bibliography and are no back-of-the-book notes provided. (In the back, the reader is directed for “endnotes for this book” to a website that offers the Patterson book and others for sale. But I see no endnotes.) Perhaps Patterson thought he could write a more balanced book without talking to Woods. Maybe he tried to land an interview session and failed. It would have been nice had he explained it one way or the other.
Patterson seems to take a sympathetic look at Woods’ off-the-course transgressions, such as his adultery and issues with pills and car accidents and rehab. Those do get covered (“It is the third time in a dozen years that police have been called to the scene of an accident to find a semi-conscious Tiger Woods behind the wheel of a wrecked car”), but not with a lot of detail.
There were a few snippets of new information — I didn’t recall Tiger’s fascination with Navy Seals and the military, for instance, though it makes sense given his father’s U.S. Army background — but the book’s subtitle, “His life as it’s never been told before,” seems a stretch. It breaks little new ground, though it does take us through the February 2024 Genesis Invitational, which Tiger hosts.
I enjoyed this read but preferred an earlier book co-authored by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian called “Tiger Woods,” published in 2018. They interviewed hundreds of people to get the inside story themselves.
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By Jerry West and Jonathan Coleman
Little, Brown and Company (2011)
When NBA Hall of Famer Jerry West died at age 86 in June, it drew me back to the memoir he wrote 13 years earlier. I consider it as revealing an autobiography as I have read of a major sports figure — on a par with that of Andre Agassi’s (“Open,” published in 2009). I decided to re-read it, and I am glad I did.
The subtitle of West’s book is “My Charmed, Tormented Life.” In his dedication, Jerry thanks his wife, Karen, “who loves, cares for and nurtures a very complicated man.” He wasn’t kidding.
West was one of those people who wasn’t happy unless he was unhappy. Or maybe he never knew he was mostly happy. Actually, it makes no sense that a person so smart, so talented, so popular and so accomplished wouldn’t be mostly happy with his life.
But West was conflicted, stemming primarily from his upbringing in rural West Virginia and the physical beatings he took from his father. Jerry survived and thrived in his life but never got over it. After a beating when he was only nine, Jerry mustered the courage to tell his father if he ever did it again, he would shoot and kill him. That ended the beatings, but not the suffering. Jerry believes he would have been incriminated for any such vengeful act.
“Even though he terrified me, I am ashamed of the fact that I can neither forgive nor forget the horrible feelings I have toward him,” West writes. “At that point in my life, either I was going to die or he was. If I had actually pulled the trigger of the gun under my bed and killed him, I feel sure it would have been seen as a calculated act, as something that had been building and building for quite some time. I don’t think the truth of my circumstances would have protected me, would have led to anyone’s viewing it as self-defense.”
Part of the torment also came from the death of older brother David while serving in the Korean War. Jerry idolized David and never got over losing him when he was 13.
The book is in part a confessional, certainly cathartic in telling a story that he kept secret from all but his inner circle. Though West was clearly confident in his amazing basketball abilities and believed that he achieved great things in his life, he was also humble and self-deprecating in his memoir. He was uncomfortable with, yet somehow appreciative, of his exalted position in American society.
“Throughout the years, I have never gotten used to the reverential way people treat me in West Virginia,” he writes. “At the same time, though, it makes me proud and it fills, some, though not all, of my emptiness.”
There are many contradictions. West believed he had trouble allowing people to get close but writes about his many seemingly tight relationships with friends, teammates and other comrades. Though he provides evidence of his accomplishments as a player, coach and executive, he emphasizes the torment of losing 71-70 in the NCAA championship game for West Virginia against California in 1959, and of winning only one title in his 14 NBA seasons. He confides in what would pass as at the minimum poor treatment and perhaps abuse with both of his wives, who endured the silent treatment and threats of him leaving them during his periods of depression. He also confesses to multiple affairs with his first wife.
“So here I was, displaying no respect for my marriage and no respect for my three sons (he would eventually have five in total from his two wives),” he writes. “And yet I continued doing what I was doing. It was like a game, a contest, and it really became a problem, and it became a sickness, and it became my way of coping. … I would go to bed some nights and say to myself, ‘Why in the world are you doing this? Why?’ ”
Though the book is written in first-person, West also felt it important to include perspective from those who knew him well, including extensive commentary from Pat Riley, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Elgin Baylor, Mitch Kupchak and others. (Kobe Bryant was the only person who turned down an offer to talk, which surprised West, who felt a particular kinship with Kobe.)
In the book, West makes no secret of his disdain for former Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke and his poor relationship with Phil Jackson. He really makes no secrets of anything in his life. In some ways, he is too tough on himself, which is unusual in a memoir by a person of such prestige.
I interviewed West a few times over the years. He wouldn’t have known me other than as just another member of the Fourth Estate, but he was respectful and forthcoming and expansive with his responses to questions.
The last time we spoke was when he was working with the Golden State Warriors, at least a decade ago. I was working on some sort of reflective piece on the Lakers and had left a phone message for him. I was at Reser Stadium during an Oregon State football game. Moments before kickoff, my cell phone rang. It was Jerry, calling and apologizing for the tardiness of his reply.
I moved with my laptop to the back of the press box so I could hear better, but the din of the crowd noise made it extremely difficult. I asked three or four questions, tried my best to make out his response and thanked him for calling back.
Our brief discussion could have been a microcosm of West’s life. Difficult. Unfulfilling. Yet responsible, respectful and from my point of view rewarding, in that his comments added greatly to my piece.
I believe for the most part, West had a happy life. It is too bad he wouldn’t allow himself to fully appreciate it. He was a case study for psychologists and the effects of child abuse, even with a person who achieves greatness in life afterward.
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Tall Tales: The Glory Years of the NBA
By Terry Pluto
University of Nebraska Press (1992)
I procured this book because I had read Pluto’s earlier gem, “Loose Balls,” a chronology of the old American Basketball Association. When I told Terry how much I had enjoyed it, he said, “Then you might like ‘Tall Tales.’ ”
The formats of the books are almost identical. Pluto wrote lead-ins for every chapter and other sections in the book, then let quotes from the participants tell the story.
“Tall Tales” details the embryonic stages of the NBA, which was founded in 1946 but really began in 1949 with the mergers of the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League. Pluto covers the 1950s and ‘60s and takes the reader through 1970, when — ironically — the Trail Blazers joined the league.
What is best about this book is insight provided by so many important players, coaches, referees, broadcasters and media types from the era. Bill Russell is absent, but there are plenty of quotes from Wilt Chamberlain, Red Auerbach, Oscar Robertson, Tommy Heinsohn, Bob Pettit, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, Dolph Schayes, Lenny Wilkens, Billy Cunningham, Nate Thurmond, Earl Strom, Marv Albert, Chick Hearn and many, many more.
It was a very different NBA, when salaries were just beyond pauper levels, when players had to hold offseason jobs to make ends meet, when arenas were sweaty and smoky and the game played mostly below the rim. Dunkers were considered showoffs. The 3-point shot was still decades away.
The reader hears from some of the true pioneers of the NBA, including Earl Lloyd, the league’s first African American player; Danny Biasone, who invented the 24-second shot clock; Johnny “Red” Kerr, the NBA’s first iron man; Frank Ramsey, the league’s first sixth man, and a hot dog named “Hot Rod” Hundley.
I particularly enjoyed chapters about what the league’s early black players endured, Auerbach and the Boston Celtics’ dynasty and the comparisons between the great centers of the era, Chamberlain and Russell (Wilt comes out surprisingly good in that one).
The book is 380 pages long, and left me wanting more. Another very good read, Terry Pluto.
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Readers: what are your thoughts? I would love to hear them in the comments below. On the comments entry screen, only your name is required, your email address and website are optional, and may be left blank.
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