Jack Dempsey was perfectly suited to the time in which he fought, the
time when the United States first felt the throb of its own overwhelming
power. For eight years and two months after World War I, Dempsey, with
his fierce good looks and matchless dedication to the kill, was
heavyweight champion of the world. A Flame of Pure Fire is the
extraordinary story of a man and a country growing to maturity in a
blaze of strength and exuberance that nearly burned them to ash. Hobo,
roughneck, fighter, lover, millionaire, movie star, and, finally, a
gentleman of rare generosity and sincerity, Dempsey embodied an America
grappling with the confusing demands of preeminence. Dempsey lived a
life that touched every part of the American experience in the first
half of the twentieth century. Roger Kahn, one of our preeminent writers
about the human side of sport, has found in Dempsey a subject that
matches his own manifold talents. A friend of Dempsey's and an
insightful observer of the ways in which sport can measure a society's
evolution, Kahn reaches a new and exciting stage in his acclaimed career
with this book. In the story of a man John Lardner called "a flame of
pure fire, at last a hero," Roger Kahn finds the heart of America.
