"It's just not possible to write a better biography than The Last Folk Hero, which is Jeff Pearlman's best book yet. And that's saying something." — New York Post
“A tremendous book, impossible to put down, one of the most well-reported books I ever remember reading." — Peter King
“Bo Jackson awed fans with the impossible. The sensational, two-sport, baseball and football superstar has a highlights reel packed with moonshot homers, crazy throws, unstoppable touchdown runs and iconic Nike ads. If you grew up in the 1980s and ’90s, you probably wanted to be like Bo. In The Last Folk Hero, Jeff Pearlman shows us how Vincent Jackson became ‘Bo’ with engrossing reporting that takes us from his early childhood to his athletic apex to that fluke, career-changing injury. Along the way, Pearlman unpacks the real story from the embellishments and myths that seem to grow in each retelling.” — NPR.org
"Pearlman's palpable enthusiasm supercharges descriptions of Mr. Jackson’s at-bats or off-tackle runs. ... Delightful. ... Often hilarious. ... There is surely a throng that will want to read this excellent book." — Wall Street Journal
"No writer in America is better at digging into the truth of the mythical sports star or legendary sports dynasty than Jeff Pearlman, who has done it again with The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson. With a book that races along at the pace of Jackson’s relatively brief but stunning career, Pearlman deftly captures his greatness, corrals his elusiveness, and eventually captures his ultimate disappearance. After soaring and sprinting through this compelling tale of both superman powers and human vulnerability, one can safely say, without question, Pearlman knows Bo." — Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times columnist and panelist on ESPN’s Around the Horn
“A legendary tome on a legendary athlete that was almost too good to be true. Pearlman's research takes us into Bo's cramped childhood home, inside his elementary school classrooms and onto the first muddy fields he ever played on. And in doing so, he gets us closer than we've ever gotten to the truth of who Jackson really was, and how he got to be that way. The book is appointment reading; an undeniable masterclass.” — Chris Herring, New York Times bestselling author of Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks
"Reading Jeff Pearlman's masterwork about Bo Jackson feels almost as much classic comic as sports biography; his subject more superhuman than star athlete. Pearlman's famously deep reporting has produced a riveting, lightning-fast read about a character and a man, a legend and a life, of the sometimes faint line that separates the stories we tell and the ones that happen to be true. Bo did things no athlete ever had or will again, and he filled a generation of kids with memories and possibilities and what-ifs, and—long after this kid grew up—the notion that Superman might actually be real. This is a book I'll read again and again." — Kent Babb, author of Across the River: Life, Death, and Football in an American City
"As Jeff Pearlman depicts Bo Jackson's life, from neighborhoods in Bessemer to charter jets in Memphis, you begin to wonder whether Pearlman contacted every human being who has ever interacted with Jackson. That's how detailed this book is on a life seemingly so hard to depict. Former classmates, agents, teammates, attorneys and so many others provide an array of vignettes that distinctly portray the human arc of one of sport's most mythical figures." — Alec Lewis, Kansas City Royals beat writer, The Athletic
"Every word was devoured like cornbread and collard greens at a family reunion. Pearlman's beautiful and brilliant work here takes you deep inside the life of America's greatest athlete of all time, but there is so much more to this book. As a child of Birmingham, Alabama, who fell in love with sports in the 1980s thanks to Bo Jackson, I consider this one of the greatest sports biographies ever written." — Joseph Goodman, author of We Want Bama
"A captivating, copiously researched portrait of once-in-a-century supernova Bo Jackson." — Booklist
“A standout addition to biographies of hall-of-fame athletes. Jackson’s fans are in for a treat.” — Publishers Weekly
"An excellent, well-researched biography. . .Highly recommended for all interested in sports." — Library Journal (starred review)
“Far more than a typical sports biography. [The Last Folk Hero] is a complete portrait of an extraordinary athlete and a man with an enduring charisma, as well as a vivid account of the changing social and sports landscapes in which he played. In short, it is an undeniable masterpiece.” — Bookreporter.com
“Every sports book by Jeff Pearlman is a must-read… Pearlman writes as only a great storyteller can – witty, funny, informative, and always insightful. [The Last Folk Hero] is quite simply a joy, as entertaining and enjoyable a sports book as you will find.” — All Sports Book Reviews
"Pearlman tells us everything there is to know about the two-sport star." — Andscape/ESPN
"This is a giant book, thoroughly detailed. ... Pearlman has such a lively, conversational style that reading was not a slog, and the story is nearly unbelievable." — The Tuscaloosa News
★ 10/04/2022
Former Sports Illustrated senior writer Pearlman (Two Writers Slinging Yang; Gunslinger podcast) vividly relates the life, times, and achievements of Bo Jackson, the only professional athlete to have been named an All Star in both baseball and football. Based on extensive research, including 720 original interviews, this book takes the reader back to 1962 when Jackson was born in racially segregated Bessemer, AL, and through his years at Auburn University, where he was twice named All-American running back and won the 1985 Heisman Trophy. That occurred after he rejected playing for the New York Yankees, an offer that came while he was still in high school, where he also excelled in football and won two state decathlon titles. The book describes the years he played baseball as a Memphis Chick, a Kansas City Royal, a Chicago White Sox, and a California Angel. He later played for the NFL's L.A. Raiders until a hip injury ended his career. Today, he says he gets his rush from raising money for the Alabama Governor's Emergency Relief Fund through his Bo Bikes Rama organization. VERDICT An excellent, well-researched biography with insights, firsthand accounts, and an extensive bibliography section. Highly recommended for all interested in sports.—Lucy Heckman
2022-08-17
An appreciative life of sports star Vincent “Bo” Jackson (b. 1962), a star in both football and baseball.
In his latest sports bio, prolific sportswriter Pearlman demonstrates Jackson’s near-mythical achievements on the gridiron and diamond, whether “throwing a football straight into the air and hitting the New Orleans Superdome scoreboard—140 feet above his head,” or “the 1989 throw from the leftfield corner to gun down Seattle’s Harold Reynolds at home” as an adult or chucking a rock a couple of hundred yards as a 7-year-old. Much of the book centers on Jackson’s accomplishments as a player for Auburn, often the Alabama Crimson Tide’s poor relation on the Southern football circuit, at least until Jackson helped engineer crushing victory over their archrivals (legendary Alabama coach Bear Bryant retired immediately afterward). Of particular interest to aspiring athletes are the pages devoted to Jackson’s carefully orchestrated negotiations with the MLB and NFL, who wanted him so badly that he was able to play both baseball and football concurrently—albeit not without some hardball thrown by the owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who treated Jackson precisely like “a poor kid from East Bumfuck, Alabama.” Taking down other sports heroes in the bargain, notably Reggie Jackson (no relation) and Deion Sanders, Pearlman throws in about every sports cliché in existence, from staccato sentence fragments to overwrought mixed metaphors (“Jackson was no longer a secret weapon. If anything, he was a flashing bolt of lightning”). Yet there are revelations, as well, including an explanation of how he came to be known as Bo. Ultimately, Pearlman is no mere hero worshipper, writing of his subject, “he is far from warm and bubbly, and oftentimes quite suspicious of the motives of anyone not named Bo Jackson.”
A good choice for devotees, showing how their hero sometimes has feet of clay—but remains a hero all the same.
