But that's a fictionalized account of Ketchels life isn't it? Not a biography. I haven't read that but I have read a few of his books and they're generally very entertaining. I read one of his called Wildwood Boys which is a fictionalized account of the life of Confederate guerilla leader Bloody Bill Anderson which is similar blend of fact and fiction I assume to the book about Ketchel, so therefore would have a fair amount of artistic license taken. I find those sort of books to be best taken as pure fiction and to be read for entertainment rather than information. Thats not to say it's not a crap book anyway. Not many authors have a perfect strike rate re quality.
To me its crap.I don't know about his other books and I don't plan on finding out anytime soon.I bought it in a job lot on E Bay so no harm done there.
It's more a question of what I found in it that was rigorous. It is not even a book on boxing history, it is more of a fable!
Fair enough. A fictionalised book about a real fighter I can recommend is Black Ajax by George MacDonald Fraser. It’s an account of the story of the bare knuckle prize fighter Tom Molineaux. It’s a great yarn, wonderfully written and very funny in parts. Every bit as good as GMF’s more famous Flashman series.
I’ll do that. His series of books about the Wolfe family were really good reads as well. I was planning on reading The Killings of Stanley Ketchel but I’m not so sure now.
It's written as if a voice in Jem Mace's head is telling the story, in other words, completely made up conversations from the author's imagination, loosely based on historical fact. Also, a large part of the book has the author talking about his personal relationship with his own father so you get two stories in one. If you already own the book, take a look at the pictures and photos in the middle and see how many you can find that have the wrong captions on them, there are quite a few. This book for me is historical fiction much like the previously mentioned 'Killings of Stanley Ketchel' and 'Black Ajax' books but it's not marketed as such presumably because the part of the book relating to the author's father is factual. If you want to read about Mace, the Graham Gordon biography is the one to get. That has room for improvement but is far superior to the Gypsy Jem garbage and as far as I can see the author knows who is in the illustrations and photos. But if you like a nice yarn or story and you aren't too bothered about facts, then you may well enjoy the book.
Norman Mailer's book the fight is full of inaccuracies and out right lies, he's the guy that singlehandedly invented the "Angelo loosened the ropes" myth. Some of the stuff he wrote about Greb doesn't seem plausible either, he makes him out to be a sex maniac. Jonathan Eig's biography of Ali is pretty horrible, it's full of sloppy research and it's clear he doesn't know anything about boxing, describing Ali as an essentially skillless fighter whose victories were mostly gift decisions! I don't just mean the Norton fight, the guy thinks Shavers was robbed!
i don’t know, sometimes a bad book written about a good subject beats the alternative if the alternative means no book at all. I have read biographies where the fighters are clearly being correctly quoted but the writer has not got the knowledge to translate a correction. But sometimes that’s funny. Some really well researched biographies can be spoiled by the author not really being a fan of boxing.
I've one on Jim Driscoll by Alexander Cordell. "Peerless Jim" I would perhaps call it "faction".I enjoyed it,and a couple of his other books.
I'm a bit rigid on boxing books you may well enjoy it! My usual fiction is Hemingway, McCarthy,Steinbeck,Faulks ,Lawrence etc , which wouldn't be to everyone's taste I suppose.
Id say he is," the man to go to" with questions on Harry. Ona side note I really liked Springs Toledo short book on Greb." Smoke Stack Lightning."