Driven: A Daughter's Odyssey

Tennis Hits the Books

In late 2018 and early 2019 Julie Heldman appeared on a couple of podcasts that I regularly listen to. She was promoting her new book, Driven: A Daughter’s Odyssey. Julie Heldman is the daughter of Gladys Heldman, the promotor who drove the inception of the women’s professional tennis tour. Julie Heldman herself also played on the tour that her mother created.

I didn’t rush to amazon to order a copy. My perception was that tennis now had it’s own edition of Mommy Dearest. I don’t have a lot of use for tell-all novels.

As the world celebrated the 50 year anniversary of the events which resulted in the women’s professional tennis tour, I was suddenly interested in the topic. The WTA replay of the Hall of Fame induction interview of Gladys Heldman prompted me to dig further into the history of those events which resulted in “The Organizational Dynamics of the Original Nine” essay.

Gladys Heldman was a force of nature. It is indisputable that women’s professional tennis would not have happened at that point in time without her leadership, promotion, and sheer force of will to make it happen. The self-portrait of the Hall of Fame interview presented her own perspective of herself and those historic events. To gain deeper perspective of Gladys Heldman, I needed to view the events from a secondary perspective.

When my copy of Driven: A Daughter’s Odyssey arrived at my doorstep, I realized that it was a self-published book. That lowered my expectations even further from my Mommy Dearest perception. My initial fears that the book would not be very good were completely unfounded.

Driven: A Daughter’s Odyssey may be the best book on the history of women’s professional tennis ever written. There are other books purporting to be an accurate account of the events leading up to the “Original Nine” in 1970. However, those books were published contemporaneously as the women’s tour unfolded. Those books can be accurately regarded as promotion and marketing materials. They are not wholly reliable narrators of the events and do not benefit by reflection over time.

I have to confess that until I read the book, I had also kind of filed Julie Heldman away as a “bit player” in all that transpired. I thought she played on the tour simply because her mother founded it. In retrospect, she would have been a key player in the formation of the women’s tour even if she had not been the daughter of Gladys.

Julie Heldman is a brilliant and talented woman that details the formation of the tour against the vivid backdrop of the late sixties and early seventies. The book is exceptionally well written and entertaining. Other than periodically pausing to share astonishing passages with the Fiend at Court spousal unit, it was an absolute page turner. I had trouble putting it down.

I can not emphasize enough how important the book is from a historical perspective. Julie Heldman has a unique first person perspective with insight into her mother’s involvement and experience as a player on tour. I have great appreciation that Heldman had the both the courage and the literary talent to write it.

Julie Heldman is completely open about her struggles with mental illness throughout her life. Her complicated relationship with her mother was likely rooted in, and exacerbated by, chemical imbalances in both. The tennis court was sometimes a sanctuary from the turmoil in Julie Heldman’s life and at others the cauldron where her emotional state boiled over. That’s true of a lot of tennis players. Julie Heldman was carrying more baggage than most would have ever imagined.

This book is now firmly entrenched in my mind as a “must read” for anyone who is interested in tennis history. It is riveting and raw. It was transformative of how I view the origin story of women’s professional tennis.

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