Ah, figure skating. My favorite sport ever. When I was a teenager, I was pretty much glued to the television set during Nationals, Worlds, and especially the Olympics. My favorite skater was Michelle Kwan and I wanted desperately for her to win the gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympic Games. Well, we all know how that turned out. Michelle skated the program of her life, but so did Tara Lipinski, a 15-year-old sprite who tore into the Olympics and made them her own. Michelle was left to go home and pick up the pieces of what might have been.
In Edge of Glory: The Inside Story of the Quest for Figure Skating's Gold Medals, sportswriter Christine Brennan takes the reader through the 1997 - 1998 figure skating season for several of the sport's top athletes -- Elvis Stojko, Todd Eldredge, Alexai Urmanov, Michael Weiss, and of course, Tara and Michelle. Starting at their home rinks, going through the selection of music and choreography, to the introspection (does a top male figure skater "need" the quadruple toe loop, or can he win the gold without it?), she goes through the year to Nationals and finally, to the Olympic Games, building up and following the champions to the biggest nights of their lives.
It's the sort of book that someone with a passing interest in figure skating wouldn't be interested in. This book is more for the former skater or current skating aficionado, one who can tell a difference between the jumps and understand that a penchant for doing the most difficult technical stunts does not always a gold medal earn. In some parts, it gets very technical -- the nitty gritty about jumps and why they are placed where they are in the program, etc. But it is a very interesting and fast-paced book; I read this in a day.
My criticism comes in the writing. Since it is written by a sportswriter, I expect the book to read like a series of newspaper articles. And in parts, it does. Where the skater or the skater's family granted Brennan an interview, it reads like a syrupy-sweet and introspective analysis, such as with Michelle Kwan, Alexai Urmanov, Michael Weiss (whom Brennan clearly has a thing for) and Todd Eldredge. But when speaking about the skaters who declined an interview, Brennan unloads both barrels, and the writing takes a dive in quality, to be on par with trashy supermarket tabloids. Unfortunate.
Those who are fans of Tara Lipinski will abhore this book. "Team Tara" (Brennan's name for the tight-knit group of Tara's parents, coaches, and agent) was notorious for being picky about who talked to their little star. Brennan was never granted an interview with the Lipinskis, but she more than makes up for it with hearsay obtained from Tara's former coaches, snarky "skating moms" at the rink where she used to skate, and interview fodder of Lipinski's mother shooting her mouth off again and again. Those readers who would love a chance to snark on Lipinski as a "flash in the pan" would love this, but after nearly 14 years, I found it tedious. In figure skating, as in all sports, there can only be one winner, and everyone else must learn to content themselves with lesser places. Brennan's clear biases towards certain skaters taint the book somewhat, and that is really unfortunate.
Rating: ***
It's the sort of book that someone with a passing interest in figure skating wouldn't be interested in. This book is more for the former skater or current skating aficionado, one who can tell a difference between the jumps and understand that a penchant for doing the most difficult technical stunts does not always a gold medal earn. In some parts, it gets very technical -- the nitty gritty about jumps and why they are placed where they are in the program, etc. But it is a very interesting and fast-paced book; I read this in a day.
My criticism comes in the writing. Since it is written by a sportswriter, I expect the book to read like a series of newspaper articles. And in parts, it does. Where the skater or the skater's family granted Brennan an interview, it reads like a syrupy-sweet and introspective analysis, such as with Michelle Kwan, Alexai Urmanov, Michael Weiss (whom Brennan clearly has a thing for) and Todd Eldredge. But when speaking about the skaters who declined an interview, Brennan unloads both barrels, and the writing takes a dive in quality, to be on par with trashy supermarket tabloids. Unfortunate.
Those who are fans of Tara Lipinski will abhore this book. "Team Tara" (Brennan's name for the tight-knit group of Tara's parents, coaches, and agent) was notorious for being picky about who talked to their little star. Brennan was never granted an interview with the Lipinskis, but she more than makes up for it with hearsay obtained from Tara's former coaches, snarky "skating moms" at the rink where she used to skate, and interview fodder of Lipinski's mother shooting her mouth off again and again. Those readers who would love a chance to snark on Lipinski as a "flash in the pan" would love this, but after nearly 14 years, I found it tedious. In figure skating, as in all sports, there can only be one winner, and everyone else must learn to content themselves with lesser places. Brennan's clear biases towards certain skaters taint the book somewhat, and that is really unfortunate.
Rating: ***
No comments:
Post a Comment