A Kind Of Grace: The Autobiography Of The World's Greatest Female Athlete (1997) - Plot & Excerpts
One of the interesting aspects of biographies/autobiographies is that the story can be superb even when the writing is mediocre. A Kind of Grace, the autobiography of Olympian heptathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee exemplifies this.I should probably start with the disclaimer that I'm not a huge fan of biographies. There are some that are extremely well-written, but they are typically of people who are little-known or are already dead. This book did remind me why I'm not a fan of biographies.Jackie’s StoryMany people—fellow athletes, sportswriters, coaches—have fashioned Jackie Joyner-Kersee as the greatest female athlete ever. Indeed, the Associated Press dubbed her the greatest female athlete of the 20th Century. She won two Olympic gold medals and one silver in the heptathalon. She also won a gold, a silver, and a bronze in the long jump. She was the first woman to earn more than 7,000 points in the heptathalon and holds the American long jump record at 24 feet, 7 inches.Jackie was also a basketball player, leading her high school team to a championship and turning in outstanding performances throughout her career at UCLA.I remember watching Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Florence Griffith-Joyner during the Olympics in Los Angeles and Seoul, and to a lesser extent, Atlanta. Those were the Olympics that I was most excited about, planning my schedule so I could catch all the track and field, gymnastics, and swim events.I’ve never been much impressed with athletics. I enjoyed sports when it meant a trip to a stadium or an arena with my dad, but I bought into too many stereotypes about athletes to ever be much of a sports fan. The Olympics, though, were different. The Olympics were inspiring as they told the stories of individual athletes who were highly disciplined and committed. Or, at least, that was how I looked at the Olympics then.Jackie’s story is a fascinating one. She grew up in a poor neighborhood as the child of teenage parents who married when they were 16 and 14. One of the major influences in her life was the construction of a community center in her neighborhood. She began hanging out there all day during the summers and signing up to learn more from nearly every speaker that came through the center.It was through one of these sign-up sheets that she eventually starting running. Though the team at the community center didn’t last long, the organizer hooked her up with a local track coach, Nino Fennoy. At age 11, she was running in organized events.I’ve always thought of Olympian athletes as people who are child proteges, infused with a natural talent that makes them champions. I was surprised to learn that Jackie came in dead last in nearly every race she ran for the first couple summers. The fact that she stayed with the sport is something I found more inspiring than any anecdote about overcoming poverty or being surrounded by violence.The book goes on to tell us of Jackie’s life, year-by-year up until the end of the Atlanta Olympics and her emotional winning of the bronze medal in long jump. The book was written in 1998, talking about her plans to go on and play basketball. She did indeed go on to play professional basketball, though she was rather undistinguished in her play. It is, though, one of the hazards of writing an autobiography when you are only 32—you still have a lot of living that takes place after the book ends.The Telling of her StoryThis was a difficult book to keep reading. For all that the story it was telling was dramatic and inspirational, the writing was merely competent. It used good grammar, it was spelled correctly, and had a semblance of organization.The book was co-written by a Sports Illustrated editor, Sonja Steptoe. Steptoe is a regular on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” and has an impressive list of credentials. Yet, she didn’t do Jackie justice. Or perhaps Jackie didn’t let her. It’s always hard to tell with a co-writing arrangement.The book does accomplish what it sets out to do: It competently tells the story of Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s life and athletic accomplishments. However, despite the inherent drama in the actual events, the writing is mostly devoid of drama. There are a few times the writer tries to generate excitement and drama, but fails through too much commentary. In one of the early chapters about her high school athletics, I almost through the book down in disgust. The writer wrote, “This was very unfortunate.” Why couldn’t they just show me the events and let me make a conclusion?The only time that the book came close to involving me emotionally was during the description of her mother’s death. Those scenes did bring a lump to my throat, especially as she described the decision about whether to take the mother off life support.Most other times, though, it was hard to make a connection to any of the characters—including Jackie herself. Her brother Al was little more than a name that showed up during various events. Her husband was given a little more depth, but most of the description was defending him against accusations rather than showing how he had the character she claims.Some of what hampers the book is her caution about offending anyone. Sometimes the story comes across as bland and one-sided. She is quick to be understanding when another athlete challenges her or is rude to her. She mentions the infamous break between her husband coach and her brother and sister-in-law Florence Griffith-Joyner and Al Joyner. She doesn’t, however, give the reason why it happened. Instead, she focused on how there were no hard feelings between any of them, though she did think that the way they handled it was “inappropriate.” On the same note, other people float in and out of the book with little background or continuity in their treatment. Al and FloJo’s wedding is mentioned almost as a footnote with no indication whether she was present, approved of the match, or knew about their budding love affair. While it was Jackie’s autobiography, not theirs, they were her family, her teammates, and an important part of her life. It seems strange that they received such short shrift.Another thing that frustrated me in this book was that it really didn’t portray her as the champion that she is. She spends too much time discussing how a particular magazine didn’t give her the highest ranking, or how a single reporter failed to give her the recognition she felt she deserved. If I hadn’t lived through the Olympics and watched her racing, the book would have led me to believe that she received very little recognition or publicity for her talent. This doesn’t even come close to the truth. She was far more appreciated and admired than she acknowledges in this book. She referred to her showing in the Los Angeles Olympics as a failure—yet she came home with a silver medal. That is hardly a failure in anyone’s book—especially in the eyes of those who couldn’t even qualify for the Olympics.Also in the spirit of “tell, don’t show,” there are a few too many platitudes in this book. Jackie’s actions are much more eloquent than the cliches that are reprinted in this book. Indeed, the Kirkus reviewer had a quote which states it much more succinctly than I could: “Also frustrating is Joyner's tendency--shared by many other athletes--to present the most banal personal revelations as wisdom worth sharing with others: ``Today might look gloomy, but tomorrow will be bright'' is one such pearl.”Perhaps the book’s biggest indictment to me is that I put the book down less interested in track & field than I had been before I read the book, though perhaps now a little better informed about records and individual events. Certainly the portrayal of the sport in the book left me grateful that I’d never been involved in track and field and confused about why anyone would find it rewarding or worthy of such commitment to. It seems a painful sport that rewards only a few.My advice on whether to read this book? Skip it, but DO find out more about Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s life and her story. It is inspirational and she remains one of the most incredible athletes of our time.
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