RaveNew York Times Book Review... exhaustively researched ... Maraniss’s choice of book title is itself an indication that his story of Thorpe’s life is as much about sadness and exploitation as it is about athletic perfection. Of what are at least four translations of Thorpe’s Sac and Fox name, Maraniss chose \'Path Lit by Lightning\' rather than the more familiarly used \'Bright Path.\' Lightning is not merely a metaphor for athletic speed or power. When it illuminates it may do so for only a moment before plunging everything back into darkness. And it can also kill ... The author calmly takes us beyond the brilliance of Thorpe’s early football and track success at the Carlisle \'Indian Industrial School\' by calling the place what it really was: a forced assimilation camp ... Maraniss elegantly records Thorpe’s still-unbelievable domination of the 1912 Olympics, and contextualizes it by reminding us that it took place between his 1911 and 1912 college football seasons, which today could have won Thorpe back-to-back Heisman Trophies...But he also emphasizes that in the same calendar year that Thorpe’s gridiron success was laying the ground for professional football in this country and his pentathlon gold medal was earned with a score three times better than the runner-up’s, he was not permitted to become a citizen of the United States ... Of the greatest injustice of Thorpe’s life, the stripping of his 1912 Olympic medals because he had previously played professional minor league baseball, Maraniss offers fresh and infuriating research ... But Maraniss’s greatest contribution to the factual record of a transcendent athlete is his account of the years after Thorpe’s glory ... yet for all this, Maraniss continually yet gently returns to an affirmation.