I was talking to fellow press pariah and author Joel Drucker (Jimmy Connors Saved My Life) the other day and happened to mention that I was all fired up because TennisWife Lisa had just bought me a copy of the new Cormac McCarthy book, No Country for Old Men. I’m in that camp led by Harold Bloom that thinks Blood Meridian is the mythic Great American Novel.
So anyway, Joel’s response is: “Who, Mark McCormack McCarthy?” That’s how it is around U.S. Open time. It’s all tennis, all the time, as Tennis Festivus rolls on to the grand finale.
Also on the book front, New York Times sports columnist Selena Roberts' book about the King-Riggs “Battle of the Sexes” is out. I was surprised to see how badly it was panned in the Times by Jay Jennings, a friend of mine and former features editor at TENNIS.
Selena’s a very gifted writer and a comrade-in-arms. She’s a fierce liberal and feminist, so our chats about culture and politics can be somewhat—electric? I do know that this is her first venture into commercial publishing, and she had a lot of trouble trying to get this project researched and done. I haven’t read the book myself yet, but I hope that experience doesn’t put Selena off the idea of writing books. She’s smart, ethical, tough, and insightful.
I also feel somewhat guilty for having been so slow to act on a note I got from journo Paul Fein, who’s book, You Can Quote Me On That will be an amusing read for any tennis fan interested in great quips, zingers, and even insights.
And one more thing: Did any of you other book freaks see the New York Timesstory on Hunter S. Thompson’s memorial service? It struck me as an incredibly infantile exercise, filled with all the usual too-hip-for-thou celebrities. I really liked a lot of Thompson’s books. (In fact, during one hazy period in the late 1960s, I mistakenly thought they were either about me or written by me—it was, remember, the age of delusion and hallucination for more folks than HST!) But calling him one of the “great writers” of the 20th century? Comparing him to Joseph Conrad?
Please.
Thompson was a brilliant, inventive journalist. Isn’t that enough for the hagiographers?