Gunslinger

August 8, 2016
Skilled sports biographer Pearlman (Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s) brings his dogged approach to this enjoyable book on Brett Favre, the gambling, cannon-armed quarterback whose talent and boyish enthusiasm brought the Green Bay Packers back to hallowed relevance in the mid-1990s. That was before inconsistent play, nonstop waffling on retirement, and an ill-advised text to a comely TV reporter dimmed the halo. Favre was not destined for stardom. His father and high-school coach, Irv, favored a running game that kept college scouts uninterested in his son. (Away from the field, one of Irv’s methods of punishment was having his kids kneel on a rock pile.) In the pros, Favre’s addictions and carousing tested his marriage. As years went by, the quarterback hardened, going from an easygoing soul to a demanding type who followed his own rules, whether that meant establishing his own dress code or getting his own private chef. But he was a model teammate who bridged every locker room clique and showed compassion for people in need, such as sending a truck of supplies to Hurricane Katrina victims. Pearlman’s latest effort lacks the emotional heft of his Walter Payton or Barry Bonds biographies, but he strips away Favre’s grown-up-kid mythology while reveling in his unlikely, turbulent path to iconic status. Agent: David Black, David Black Agency.

A warts-and-all biography of one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history.Brett Favre is an icon in the football world, a player who was almost universally described as a "gunslinger" for his risky, sometimes-reckless, sometimes-inspired style of play. As veteran sports biographer Pearlman (Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s, 2014, etc.)--who has made a career of chronicling the vibrant, controversial, and sometimes-unsavory aspects of the NFL's recent history--shows, the gunslinger mentality extended to Favre's off-the-field behavior. In the popular imagination, Favre is an aw-shucks good ole' boy, a small-town Mississippian whose playing style evoked a childlike love for the game. Yet in this more rounded--and some might say prurient--portrait, Favre was a serial philanderer and problem drinker whose well-known problem with painkillers went far deeper than most observers understood. Playing in isolated Green Bay, Wisconsin, meant that a pliable local media most often covered up Favre's excesses, which almost certainly would have been revealed in a more competitive media market. Pearlman's writing is brisk and generally readable, though the book is occasionally marred by clunky prose. Furthermore, while biographers should avoid hagiography, one wonders if the depth of exploration of Favre's faithlessness to his wife, Deanna (who ends up as the story's martyr), or his sometimes-unkind treatment of his father, Irv, is necessary. The author ends up asserting that Favre was both a football icon and a flawed human being, hardly a revolutionary conclusion. Nonetheless, this is the deepest understanding we are likely to have of Favre for quite some time. Though not without its flaws, Pearlman's book is a complete, satisfying biography of a gunslinger who, for both better and worse, was far more complex than most fans have understood. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from August 1, 2016

Here, best-selling author Pearlman (Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton) takes on perhaps the most celebrated football player of the last 25 years: Brett Favre. The record-setting quarterback, who spent the majority of his career with the Green Bay Packers, was tough as nails on the field, but his giant talent was hampered by a tendency to make bad decisions and costly mistakes at key moments. The author, who interviewed more than 500 sources for this biography, demonstrates how Favre regularly undermined himself and his family with problems of addiction and serial infidelity, all of which was kept out of the press until his final years when he was implicated in an embarrassing sexting scandal. VERDICT Presenting Favre as a congenial, larger-than-life character, a "gunslinger," who was fun to watch on the field and hard to root against, Pearlman proves to be a good match for his subject and creates a compelling work.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.