Review: Path Lit by Lightning, by David Maraniss
Note: I received this book as an advance copy from Goodreads.
This is the first time I read a book by award winning author-editor David Maraniss, and the book did not disappoint. Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe is an incredibly detailed biography of an internationally renowned athlete whose reputation as a dominant figure in multiple sports was frequently overshadowed by his Native American ancestry. The book’s title emphasizes this overshadowing, as it is one translation of his Sac and Fox name, Wa-Tho-Huk.
I won’t roll off additional facts about Jim Thorpe, as the book does this plenty, dispelling myths about his life while adding concrete dates and locations to the lore. Maraniss has clearly done his research, more so than any previous writer of a Thorpe biography. The information on Thorpe’s relatives, teammates, coaches, and failed business ventures clears up the mistruths floating around the internet, originally propagated by contemporaries of Thorpe and the man himself. At a certain point, the barrage of clarifications becomes too much.
This book has everything. Dysfunctional families. Indian boarding schools. Football. Baseball. The 1912 Olympics. The King of Sweden. The Worcester Telegram (a newspaper that treated me much better as an athlete than it did to Thorpe). A honeymoon tour of Pompeii. Nazis. The founding of the NFL. Alcohol. Lots and lots of lying. NAGPRA. Muhammad Ali. Fifty pages of endnotes. If you are looking for a light expansion of Thorpe’s Wikipedia page, this is not your book.
In summary, I appreciated the effort that went into this in-depth and comprehensive book. Maraniss is clearly a phenomenal researcher and deserving of his past awards. However, this book is not the best choice for all readers. Those looking for an intense, immersive experience will enjoy the ten or more hours spent with this book. Others with less interest would do better with a shorter read.
