... goes beyond the myth and into the guts of Thorpe’s life, using extensive research, historical nuance and bittersweet honesty to tell the story of a gifted and complicated man ... Maraniss’ account of the giddy atmosphere of the Swedish Olympics, where European royalty bestowed wreaths of flowers and silver trophies on winners who caroused all night in celebration, is a time trip back to a simpler era ... The rest of Thorpe’s life was a constant hustle for money and jobs. One of Maraniss’ challenges is to keep up narrative momentum through this period. For the most part he succeeds, though Thorpe’s pattern — to start strong, then flame out, then walk away — feels unbearably sad, the waste of so much potential and experience. But Maraniss refuses to paint him as either a failure or a martyr ... Maraniss’ biography does justice to the struggles and triumphs of a truly great man.
... 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.
... showcases Mr. Maraniss’s abilities as an indefatigable researcher and a deft prose stylist. But at times the march through Thorpe’s days is simply exhausting, whether because of the author’s self-described 'obsession' with his subject or his unwillingness to leave out even minor details that he has so carefully unearthed. While Thorpe’s life is fascinating, poignant and instructive, the book drags in many places, and thus some readers might find it hard to reach the finish line, which comes only at the end of a whopping 25 (!) page epilogue ... What redeems the book’s length is Mr. Maraniss’s determination to reveal Thorpe as a man in full, whose life was characterized by both soaring triumph and grievous loss. For those who would see Thorpe’s story instead as a tale of ineluctable declension, the author insists otherwise ... In this way, Mr. Maraniss unwittingly invokes the work of the scholar Gerald Vizenor, who describes this process as 'survivance,' an idea that rejects simple narratives of Native victimhood and disappearance and posits instead that the act of persistence in the face of overwhelming odds is a significant cultural and political triumph. By those lights, Jim Thorpe is unquestionably a champion.
As David Maraniss artfully demonstrates in the biography Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe, Thorpe was both puffed and pilloried ... Throughout a book marked by deep research and expert context-setting, he sifts through the myths about Thorpe and Native Americans, depicting his subject as a proud, complicated man who sought to shape his own destiny, yet was bedeviled by larger forces of racism and hypocrisy ... Maraniss pulls out the few shreds of evidence that reveal Thorpe’s unfiltered personality, but it is often difficult to see the man behind the mask ... by highlighting Thorpe’s perseverance, Maraniss paints a portrait with both heroic and tragic shadows ... tells his story with skill and integrity.
Maraniss not only succeeds in revealing the man behind the fable, but also exposes the shameful treatment that Native Americans endured, as the government sought to take their land and erase their culture ... In telling the story of an athlete who frankly deserved better, the author demonstrates both Thorpe’s persistence and courage, and the discriminatory policies that tried to keep him down.
... a masterful, in-depth portrait of a monumental figure ... All myths aren’t made the same. We like legends. They make us feel unstoppable. Other myths, however, are used to control the subject. Maraniss understands this delicate balance. He corrects the record of some of the biggest myths in Thorpe’s career — he didn’t hit three home runs into three states in one game — but Marannis doesn’t take out his hammer and smash Thorpe’s legacy. Instead, he uses the facts to restore order. Readers still come away believing Thorpe is one of the greatest ever ... As Maraniss magnificently details over the next 300 pages, even after his lowest moment, Thorpe continued to have a stellar athletic career but, like a hurdler who tripped during a race, he never fully recovered ... A dogged researcher, Maraniss leaves nothing unturned. Using federal records and newspapers, he gives equal treatment to Thorpe’s Carlisle days, his baseball career, and his pioneering pro football career, while at the same time complicating the myths that made the legend. Thorpe was more than an athlete. He was a man of the Sac and Fox Nation who spent his life searching for independence in a country designed to confine him and his people.
If you are a reader of certain kinds of non-fiction books, Path Lit by Lightning may disappoint you from the get-go ... Just by looking at it, you can tell that it’s not only about the life of athlete Jim Thorpe. No, author David Maraniss spreads his hands far and wide in a century-and-a-half tale of America, sports, and then-current events, spanning the world, politics, and injustices that are impossible to read now without cringing. This makes a great story but so wide is its presentation, that it’s almost as if there are multiple books between the covers of this volume. Readers may find that Jim Thorpe occasionally gets lost in the telling, which could be concerning for someone who prefers spare, lean biographies and just the facts ... But can you miss the delicious extras? If you prefer rail-thin biographies, that’s a decision to make. If you’re looking for a tale that sweeps around the world, though, and lands in the news just a few weeks ago, Path Lit by Lightning is a strong contender.
... meticulously researched ... Although Thorpe’s life was filled with loss, heartache, and bigotry, Maraniss focuses on the triumph in the career of this remarkable athlete, even though Thorpe never received the recognition he deserved while alive ... This attention to detail is impressive, but the narrative sometimes meanders, slowing down the flow. Still, Maraniss has written a comprehensive and insightful biography, one that, when finished, may leave readers wondering why they didn’t learn more about Thorpe in history class.
Maraniss’s book is the most comprehensive Thorpe biography to date (being nearly 200 well-cited pages longer than Kate Buford’s 2010 biography Native American Son). Beyond bringing Thorpe to life, Maraniss also delves heavily into issues of race and culture.
... sensitive and compelling ... Of course, racism was a powerful element in Thorpe’s life, and Maraniss explores this topic with insight and nuance, just as he did in his biography of Roberto Clemente ... A tale that, though well known in outline, Maraniss enriches with his considerable skills as a writer and researcher.
Maraniss trains his keen eye on the remarkable career of Jim Thorpe ... Through archival research, interviews, and oral histories, Maraniss assiduously unpacks the 'making of the man and the creation of the myth' surrounding Thorpe, the Olympic champion decathlete in track and field, centering his heritage from the outset and offering a historical overview of the kinds of discourse that would plague the athlete from the Sac and Fox nation for the entirety of his career. Along the way, he reveals striking resonances between Thorpe’s legacy and that of Sauk leader Black Hawk ... While much attention is given to the prejudices Thorpe faced—and, later, his struggles with alcoholism—Maraniss’s work offers an equally fascinating look at his subject’s outsize talent as a man who excelled in the realms of baseball, football, and athletics broadly, tacked onto a vivid backdrop of sports culture in the first half of the 20th century. This essential work restores a legendary figure to his rightful place in history.
