Alone
The Triumph and Tragedy of John Curry
Published on 31. July 2014
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-1-4088-5342-9 (ISBN)
Description
Winner of the Outstanding Sports Writing Award, Cross British Sports Book Awards 2015
Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award.
One winter's night in 1976, over 20 million people in Britain watched John Curry skate to Olympic glory on an ice rink in Austria. Many millions more watched around the world. Overnight he became one of the most famous men on the planet. He was awarded the OBE. He was chosen as BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
Curry had changed ice skating from marginal sport to high art. And yet the man was - and would always remain - an absolute mystery to a world that had been dazzled by his gift. Surely, men's skating was supposed to be Cossack-muscular, not sensual and ambiguous like this.
Curry himself was an often-tortured man of labyrinthine complexity. For the first time, Alone untangles the extraordinary web of his toxic, troubled, brilliant - and short - life. It is a story of childhood nightmares, furious ambition, sporting genius, lifelong rivalries, homophobia, Cold War politics, financial ruin and deep personal tragedy. Alone reveals the restless, impatient, often dark soul of a man whose words could lacerate, whose skating invariably moved audiences to tears, and who - after succumbing to AIDS, as so many of his fellow artists and friends did - died of a heart attack aged just 44.
Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award.
One winter's night in 1976, over 20 million people in Britain watched John Curry skate to Olympic glory on an ice rink in Austria. Many millions more watched around the world. Overnight he became one of the most famous men on the planet. He was awarded the OBE. He was chosen as BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
Curry had changed ice skating from marginal sport to high art. And yet the man was - and would always remain - an absolute mystery to a world that had been dazzled by his gift. Surely, men's skating was supposed to be Cossack-muscular, not sensual and ambiguous like this.
Curry himself was an often-tortured man of labyrinthine complexity. For the first time, Alone untangles the extraordinary web of his toxic, troubled, brilliant - and short - life. It is a story of childhood nightmares, furious ambition, sporting genius, lifelong rivalries, homophobia, Cold War politics, financial ruin and deep personal tragedy. Alone reveals the restless, impatient, often dark soul of a man whose words could lacerate, whose skating invariably moved audiences to tears, and who - after succumbing to AIDS, as so many of his fellow artists and friends did - died of a heart attack aged just 44.
Reviews / Votes
Alone is more than a sports biography. ...it is a timely reminder of the fine boundary between sport and art and the courage it took, and still takes, to be a gay athlete. * Sunday Times * A terrific read, filled with juicy detail and driven by sympathy for a man who who was feted as a national hero but was extremely hard to like. * The Times * A moving and explosive biography of an ice skating genius * Manchester Evening News * A fascinating exploration of a tragic talent. * Attitude * A touching, revealing story... a book that enthrals and mesmerises in much the same way that Curry did whenever he took to the ice * Sport * Bill Jones' brilliant biography... goes far beyond Curry's achievementson the ice. Informed by hundreds of interviews and a treasure trove of letters kept by devoted friends and family, Jones manages to untangle the man's complex and deeply secretive life. * Mail Online * Jones' diligently researched and evocative book pays tribute to Curry's art and charts his demise * Sunday Times * A fascinating exploration of a deeply troubled man...a reminder of just how much courage it took to be an openly gay sportsman in the Seventies * Mail on Sunday * Jones' beautifully and sensitively written biography... does not gloss over Curry's faults...but reminds us of his genius. * Independent on Sunday * A brilliant, honest and detailed account of a tortured sporting genius. A compelling account of a troubled athlete's rise and fall. He's gone, but this biography should mean he's never forgotten again. * Mail Online *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 153 mm
Weight
698 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-5342-9 (9781408853429)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
07/2014
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Sport
€14.49
Available for download
Person
Bill Jones started his working life as a journalist with various Northern provincial newspapers. In the early 80s he joined Granada Television in Manchester where he worked on literally hundreds of documentaries for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and many others - including an award-winning film about the contents of Frank Sinatra's coffin - before embarking on a writing career after almost three decades in broadcasting. His first book - The Ghost Runner - won him The Times Best New Writer in the 2012 British Sports Book Awards. It was also shortlisted for the William Hill award. Alone is his second book. Born in Bridlington, the author currently lives in Ampleforth, North Yorkshire, where - despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary - he insists that his ancestry is Welsh.