A Flame of Pure Fire

Jack Dempsey and the Roaring '20s

By: Roger Kahn

Narrated by: Kevin Yon

Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

Through most of the Roaring '20s, Jack Dempsey was the heavyweight champion of the world. With his fierce good looks and matchless dedication to the kill, he was a fighter perfectly suited to his time.

In A Flame of Pure Fire, renowned sports writer Roger Kahn not only chronicles the thrilling, brutal bouts of the Manassa Mauler, but also illustrates how the tumultuous 1920s shaped Dempsey - and how the champ, in turn, left an indelible mark on sports and American history.

©2000 Roger Kahn (P)2009 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"One doesn't have to be a fan of boxing to be enthralled by this story of a nice guy who didn't finish last." ( The New Yorker)

Ambitious but poorly executed

Roger Kahn attempts to use Jack Dempsey as the centerpiece of a sprawling history of the 1920s and meditation on memory. The book is clearly coming from a deep place of personal reflection and meaning. Unfortunately, it just never comes together. It feels like segments of a dozen books have been placed into a blender at times, wildly bouncing around chronologically and abruptly shifting to outside context that is only tenuously, if at all, connected to Dempsey. This strikes me as a prime example of a great writer (and Kahn at his best is just that) who reaches a level of esteem where an editor is either too intimidated or trusting to demand changes to a manuscript. This is an often rewarding listen, but structurally it is a mess. It also features too many self-absorbed personal asides from Kahn, as if Dempsey's value is only how he impacted the life of one writer. For example, to explain the psychology of boxers heading into a match, Kahn tells a long anecdote about his own pugilistic turn at summer camp as a child. This section, like much of the book, reads as a conversational journey through Kahn's memory rather than a functional biography of a great heavyweight.

A note on the narrator: The tone and delivery are largely good, but he has an embarrassing number of mispronunciations. It's listenable, but prepare to wince.

Narrator is horrible

The narrator makes this unlistenable, I was so excited for this title but the reader fails the writer.

Champ

Very interesting insight into the legend of the Jack Dempsey against the backdrop of his day.

One of the finest boxing books ever written

As an avid boxing and Jack Dempsey fan, this book couldn't have satisfied me any more than it did. An absolutely must read for any boxing fan.

Flawless

Great narrator, excellent biography,
Factually sound for the most part, and I can be as pedantic as the worst of them.
I could only find 2 errors .. and they were minor.
I was delighted with this book

And we think life is hard now!!

I love this book and this is my second read as I also own the paper version of it and enjoyed it a few years back. Jack Dempsey with Tyson and Ali are my favourite boxing characters in history and the key thing that I enjoyed about this book is that we are provided with all of the intricacies pertaining to the time period which makes this story even more enjoyable.

Loved it

Downloaded this as i was interested in learning something about the first black heavyweight champion. So you can imagine my initial disappointment...which lasted about ten minutes. Fabulous read/listen. Great social commentary and history of this exciting period & boxer. Couldn't put it down (turn it off anyway). One of those stories you want to start again as soon as it finishes. Give it a go, simply excellent.

A Knockout

If you're a boxing fan and lover of The Roaring 20's this is one for you.