A crisply written, effectively compelling chronicle.
Vivid biography of a fast-and-furious competitor on the Grand Prix racing circuit.
Former New York Times editor Cannell (I.M. Pei: Mandarin of Modernism, 1995) freely admits to not owning a car nor considering himself a particularly “impassioned driver,” yet his biography of Phil Hill, a California mechanic who became the only American-born driver to win the Formula One Drivers’ Championship Grand Prix, is a passionate, ambitious work. The author retraces Hill’s youth, eager to escape the grip of his domineering, argumentative parents as a kid maturing in Depression-era Southern California. An early infatuation with cars found him tinkering with engine parts rather than playing team sports. An indifferent college student, Hill soon dropped out to work as a mechanic and international motor salesman, a livelihood that financed his first flashy European sports-car purchase. Time spent as a Jaguar trainee spawned some accomplished racing of his own throughout his eventful mid 20s, a time when both of his parents died within months of each other and the racing enthusiast became plagued with anxiety spells. Cannell astutely draws on a wealth of sports publications, memoirs and magazines to convey Hill’s distinctive passion for the raceway and his competitive nature that belied a reputation for being kindhearted, timid and prone to severe stress. Hill climbed the ranks as a Ferrari rookie driver and meticulous automotive diagnostician, and was soon joined by crash-prone German nobleman teammate Count Wolfgang von Trips. Winning the Italian Grand Prix in 1961 proved to be the bittersweet pinnacle of Hill’s career as von Trips died in the same race in a tragic spinout that also killed 15 spectators. Cannell doesn’t lean on the crutch of exposition to convey Hill’s intrepid, sporty story, demonstrating great talent as a biographer.
A crisply written, effectively compelling chronicle.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-446-55472-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Twelve
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
While the author may attempt to mirror this ideal, the result is less than satisfying and more than a little irritating.
A disjointed debut memoir about how competitive swimming shaped the personal and artistic sensibilities of a respected illustrator.
Through a series of vignettes, paintings and photographs that often have no sequential relationship to each other, Shapton (The Native Trees of Canada, 2010, etc.) depicts her intense relationship to all aspects of swimming: pools, water, races and even bathing suits. The author trained competitively throughout her adolescence, yet however much she loved racing, “the idea of fastest, of number one, of the Olympics, didn’t motivate me.” In 1988 and again in 1992, she qualified for the Olympic trials but never went further. Soon afterward, Shapton gave up competition, but she never quite ended her relationship to swimming. Almost 20 years later, she writes, “I dream about swimming at least three nights a week.” Her recollections are equally saturated with stories that somehow involve the act of swimming. When she speaks of her family, it is less in terms of who they are as individuals and more in context of how they were involved in her life as a competitive swimmer. When she describes her adult life—which she often reveals in disconnected fragments—it is in ways that sometimes seem totally random. If she remembers the day before her wedding, for example, it is because she couldn't find a bathing suit to wear in her hotel pool. Her watery obsession also defines her view of her chosen profession, art. At one point, Shapton recalls a documentary about Olympian Michael Phelps and draws the parallel that art, like great athleticism, is as “serene in aspect” as it is “incomprehensible.”
While the author may attempt to mirror this ideal, the result is less than satisfying and more than a little irritating.Pub Date: July 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-15817-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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