Joe DiMaggio The Heros Life, Richard Ben Cramer
Joe DiMaggio The Heros Life, Richard Ben Cramer
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Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life
The Heros Life

Author: Richard Ben Cramer

Narrator: Richard Ben Cramer

Abridged: 6 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/01/2000

Synopsis

In the hard-knuckled thirties, Joe DiMaggio was the immigrant boy who made it big. He was the dominant star in the New York Yankees dynasty. As World War II loomed, Joltin' Joe launched a fifty-six game hitting streak -- and the nation literally sang his name. In the age of postwar ease and plenty, he became Broadway Joe, the icon of elegance and class -- marrying Marilyn Monroe, the most beautiful girl in America.
In 1962, when he lost that girl for good, Joe was everyman embarking on a decade of national bereavement. Joe DiMaggio was a mirror of our best self, but he was also the loneliest hero we ever had. A nation of fans would give him anything, but what he wanted most was to hide the life he chose.
In this groundbreaking biography, Richard Ben Cramer presents a stunning, often shocking portrait of the hero nobody knew. It is a story that sweeps through the twentieth century, bringing to light America's national game, movie stars, mobsters, as well as the birth -- and the price -- of modern national celebrity.
This is the story Joe DiMaggio never wanted to tell. It is the story of his grace and greed, his dignity, pride and his hidden shame.

About Richard Ben Cramer

Richard Ben Cramer (1950–2013) won the Pulitzer Prize for Middle East reporting in 1979. His journalism has appeared in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and Rolling Stone. He was the author of How Israel Lost: The Four Questions and the classic of modern American politics What It Takes: The Way to the White House.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Geoff on June 20, 2013

A good biography of a not so very good man, who was, however, a great baseball player. I loved the story about how Joe got MM out of a psych hospital: For Marilyn this was the worst fear of her life come true, she was locked away like her mother, a prisoner in a loonie bin. After three days, when she......more

Goodreads review by Tommy on December 11, 2019

"A nickel was something to hold on to in Joe's world." Hats off to Cramer for not falling victim to rosy, mushy sentimentalism when it comes to DiMaggio. So many men of Cramer's age do just that, but the bottom line is that the dude was a paranoid, deranged, cheapskate, abusive asshole. Probably not......more

Goodreads review by Andre on March 11, 2010

Excellent biography. The only nitpick--and it is a minor one--is that the thirty years between Marilyn Monroe's death and the 1989 San Francisco earthquake are ignored. Reading further, though, let me know everything I needed to know about those years. This as thorough an examination of a somewhat r......more

Goodreads review by Eddy on April 01, 2014

cc: Joe DiMaggio was, at every turn, one man we could look at who made us feel good. In the hard-knuckled thirties, he was the immigrant boy who made it big -- and spurred the New York Yankees to a new era of dynasty. He was Broadway Joe, the icon of elegance, the man who wooed and won Marilyn Monroe......more

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