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Approaching Ali: A Reclamation in Three Acts
The single most intimate look at Muhammad Ali’s retirement, told through the story of an unexpected, powerful and life-changing friendship
In 1988, then struggling writer and video store worker Davis Miller drove to Muhammad Ali’s mother’s modest Louisville house, knocked on the door, and introduced himself to his childhood idol. Now, all these years later, the two friends have an uncommon bond, the sort that can be fashioned only in serendipitous ways and fortified through shared experiences. Miller draws from his remarkable moments with The Champ to give us a beautifully written portrait of a great man physically devastated but spiritually young—playing mischievous tricks on unsuspecting guests, performing sleight of hand for any willing audience, and walking ten miles each way to grab an ice cream sundae. Informed by great literary journalists such as Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, and Gay Talese, but in a timeless style that is distinctly his own, Miller gives us a series of extraordinary stories that coalesce into an unprecedentedly humanizing, intimate, and tenderly observed portrait of one of the world’s most loved men.
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Approaching Ali: A Reclamation in Three Acts
The single most intimate look at Muhammad Ali’s retirement, told through the story of an unexpected, powerful and life-changing friendship
In 1988, then struggling writer and video store worker Davis Miller drove to Muhammad Ali’s mother’s modest Louisville house, knocked on the door, and introduced himself to his childhood idol. Now, all these years later, the two friends have an uncommon bond, the sort that can be fashioned only in serendipitous ways and fortified through shared experiences. Miller draws from his remarkable moments with The Champ to give us a beautifully written portrait of a great man physically devastated but spiritually young—playing mischievous tricks on unsuspecting guests, performing sleight of hand for any willing audience, and walking ten miles each way to grab an ice cream sundae. Informed by great literary journalists such as Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, and Gay Talese, but in a timeless style that is distinctly his own, Miller gives us a series of extraordinary stories that coalesce into an unprecedentedly humanizing, intimate, and tenderly observed portrait of one of the world’s most loved men.
The single most intimate look at Muhammad Ali’s retirement, told through the story of an unexpected, powerful and life-changing friendship
In 1988, then struggling writer and video store worker Davis Miller drove to Muhammad Ali’s mother’s modest Louisville house, knocked on the door, and introduced himself to his childhood idol. Now, all these years later, the two friends have an uncommon bond, the sort that can be fashioned only in serendipitous ways and fortified through shared experiences. Miller draws from his remarkable moments with The Champ to give us a beautifully written portrait of a great man physically devastated but spiritually young—playing mischievous tricks on unsuspecting guests, performing sleight of hand for any willing audience, and walking ten miles each way to grab an ice cream sundae. Informed by great literary journalists such as Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, and Gay Talese, but in a timeless style that is distinctly his own, Miller gives us a series of extraordinary stories that coalesce into an unprecedentedly humanizing, intimate, and tenderly observed portrait of one of the world’s most loved men.
Davis Miller's award-winning stories have been published in many of the leading national magazines—Men’s Journal, GQ, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, and Rolling Stone, among others. He is the internationally best-selling author of two previous books, including The Tao of Bruce Lee, and is co-librettist of the acclaimed chamber opera Approaching Ali, which is based on his classic story, "My Dinner with Ali."
Table of Contents
Author's Note ix
Act 1 Waking
My Dinner with Ali 3
A Boyhood Dream 30
Easter Sunday 32
Interlude: Kuwait 34
Mouse Meets Muhammad Ali 35
Wings 55
Act 2 All Things Vibrate
Last Apple 59
Ali Offers Vocational Advice 71
The Zen of Muhammad Ali: Part One 91
Interlude: Desert Storm 110
The Zen of Muhammad Ali: Part Two 111
Interlude: Jann Wenner 130
Tokyo 133
Columbus, Ohio 137
The Reverend Doesn't Play Fair … 139
And Neither Does His God 141
A Mid afternoon Dream 142
All Things Vibrate 144
Of All Times 153
Manila 156
Twenty-Dollar Bills 160
Eleven Ghosts 164
Interlude: Marrakcch 179
Act 3 A Hymn for Agnostics
There Is Nothing in the Universe That You Are Not 185
