Through most of the Roaring '20s, Jack Dempsey was the heavyweight champion of the world. With his fierce good looks and matchless dedication to the kill, he was a fighter perfectly suited to his time. In A Flame of Pure Fire, renowned sports writer Roger Kahn not only chronicles the thrilling, brutal bouts of the Manassa Mauler, but also illustrates how the tumultuous 1920s shaped Dempsey, and how the champ in turn, left an indelible mark on sports and American history. The extraordinary story of a man and a country growing to maturity in a blaze of strength and exuberance, A Flame of Pure Fire is "an exhaustively researched and colorful portrait of an American great." - The San Diego Union-Tribune
"One doesn't have to be a fan of boxing to be enthralled by this story of a nice guy who didn't finish last." - The New Yorker
After his match with Jess Willard in 1919, Jack Dempsey was declared the heavyweight champion of the world. With that fight he gained the reputation of being "the hardest hitter boxing has ever known." This biography of Dempsey comes mixed with bios of other fighters and a history of the sport politely known as pugilism. The interpretation by narrator Kevin Yon lacks polish. He sounds stiff and inexperienced, and his only inflection is varying his volume. Yon's deficiency is most apparent when he's faced with the occasional poetry, which he has no talent for. Since his own New York-accented voice never produces a character and rarely pauses, separating the author's words from those being quoted causes the listener difficulty that could have been avoided by a more skilled narrator. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
About the Author
Roger Kahn is the award-winning author of The Boys of Summer, the classic bestseller about Jackie Robinson, the Dodgers and growing up in Brooklyn. He is the author of many other books whose subjects range from baseball to political activism, including Joe & Marilyn: A Memory of Love about the courtship and marriage of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe and A Flame of Pure Fire, A New York Times Notable Book of the Year 1999 about boxing great Jack Dempsey.
