John Starks: My Life

Rating:
Summary: Starks's book and life are an inspiration to all who read it
Review: "John Starks: My Life" is an amazing read. Most sports autobiographies I've read do not dig down deep below that athlete's personal, mythic persona. This book shows exactly where Starks came from and how his ascension to playing in the NBA was a miracle. The book is much more than a sports tome. It explores the domestic abuse that Starks, as a small child, saw his mother undergo, the drug abuse of his brothers and their imprisonment and the violence around Starks that almost on a few occasions threatened to end Starks's life prematurely.

The Dunk, The Headbutt, the 2-for-18 7th game of the 1994 Finals are all thoroughly handled, but it is the relationships that Starks has with his complex mother, brother and wife that makes this book a compelling read. I recommend it to anyone who is confronting obstacles in his or her own life and doesn't see a way to surmount them.

Rating:
Summary: John Starks--Man of the Century
Review: Even if you're a die-hard Pacers or Miami fan, this book will convince you of what we Knicks fans knew all along, what drew us to the former grocery-bagger and CBAer from Tulsa, that Starks is the human being we all like to see in ourselves, his shocking rise to stardom another example of 'the American Dream.' Starks was the best of human nature--tenacious, passionate, ever-the-underdog, and pure; all the while you knew that even when he flipped off fans or head-butted Miller (I'm not saying anyone deserves to be head-butted, but...) he had a heart of gold.

As for the book itself, it's written very simply, but this just lays the sharpness betweens the lines of ethical conduct in Starks' world into starker relief. Furor about this being a book the 'author' didn't even read are really unnecessary. Starks would never claim to being a writer, and it's pretty clear that Markowitz put the book together from extensive interviews with Starks. If that bothers you, fine; for myself, I consider oral testimony a perfectly valuable form of storytelling, and it just so happens that a second party came in to organize and write it down.

I haven't read many of these kinda of books (autobiographies by popular public figures, I mean), but this one is truly fantastic. I just finished Infinite Jest, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Murakami before this, and I treasure this book more than those combined. If you're a basketball fan you will enjoy this book. Six thumbs up.