Review: The Last Hero

May 11, 2010

I was reading this New York Times review of Howard Bryant’s new biography, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, when the title hit me.

The Last Hero.

What does that say about us? Are heroes just for kids? Have we become so jaded that such an idea seems old-fashioned? I probably say this too often, but “back in the day” — before the omnipresent electronic gadgetry and distraction, before 24/7 cable sports programming — you were basically only able to learn about your favorite players by reading, whether it was a daily tabloid or The Sporting News. With all these other things to do, are we surprised that our kids aren’t as much into sports as we were?

I hope to chat with Bryant at some point to parse the title. Was it his idea? The publisher’s? I also think It’s interesting — and proper — to use A Life, rather than The Life. Maybe I’m watching too much Lost, but the notion that there is only one way to define a person is so limiting.

The Times‘ review upshot:

Howard Bryant (Photo by Erinn Hartman)

These biographies of Mays [Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, by James S. Hirsch] and Aaron, taken together, are a striking and elegiac assessment of race relations in America during the 20th century. They are elegant portraits, as well, of two different ways of being a man. Wrap them both up for the 14-year-old in your life. The volume that’ll be left standing when the major book awards are handed out, though, is Mr. Bryant’s, I suspect. His is the brawny one, the one with serious and complicated swat.

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