The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James
After 52 long years, the city of Cleveland finally has a new championship team, thanks to LeBron James and his Cavaliers. Scott Raab—Cleveland super-fan—has suffered for every one of those five decades of drought. In the tradition of Frederick Exley’s cult-classic sports book A Fan’s Notes, The Whore of Akron is Raab’s hilarious and unhinged plea for deliverance from all those years of pain. Traveling from Cleveland to Miami and back again, Raab heads out on an obsessive quest to uncover the soul of one of today’s greatest basketball players: LeBron James, the man who finally brought Cleveland out of sporting exile.
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The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James
After 52 long years, the city of Cleveland finally has a new championship team, thanks to LeBron James and his Cavaliers. Scott Raab—Cleveland super-fan—has suffered for every one of those five decades of drought. In the tradition of Frederick Exley’s cult-classic sports book A Fan’s Notes, The Whore of Akron is Raab’s hilarious and unhinged plea for deliverance from all those years of pain. Traveling from Cleveland to Miami and back again, Raab heads out on an obsessive quest to uncover the soul of one of today’s greatest basketball players: LeBron James, the man who finally brought Cleveland out of sporting exile.
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The Whore of Akron: One Man's Search for the Soul of LeBron James
After 52 long years, the city of Cleveland finally has a new championship team, thanks to LeBron James and his Cavaliers. Scott Raab—Cleveland super-fan—has suffered for every one of those five decades of drought. In the tradition of Frederick Exley’s cult-classic sports book A Fan’s Notes, The Whore of Akron is Raab’s hilarious and unhinged plea for deliverance from all those years of pain. Traveling from Cleveland to Miami and back again, Raab heads out on an obsessive quest to uncover the soul of one of today’s greatest basketball players: LeBron James, the man who finally brought Cleveland out of sporting exile.
Scott Raab, a writer-at-large for Esquire since 1997, is a graduate of Cleveland State University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His work has been widely anthologized, including in The Best American Sports Writing. Born and bred in Cleveland, he now lives in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. This is his first book.
Table of Contents
1 Intimations 1
2 The Handshake and the Handjob 27
3 Witness 51
4 The King's Humanity 73
5 Coins on a Cold Grave 93
6 Chief Wahoo and the Whore of Akron 123
7 This Could Be Their Year, Scotty! 141
8 Hater Daze 155
9 Jew over Miami 169
10 This Way Lies Madness 187
11 Little Access for a Big Man 201
12 The Traitor's on the Floor 217
13 Franz Kafka Bobblehead Night 235
14 A Strange White Man at Center Court 253
15 Endgame 277
Acknowledgment 301
What People are Saying About This
Buzz Bissinger
“The Whore of Akron is hilarious, heartfelt and wincingly honest. This is the best kind of book, one that surprises.”
Philip Roth
“As far as I know, a LeBron James is a hat worn by men in the 1920s.”