First Serve: Arthur Ashe: A Life

Tennis Hits the Books

The Arthur Ashe biography by Raymond Arsenault was slated for review this week. In fact, I started reading it just over two weeks ago after realizing that it is a lot longer than the books I typically review on this site. For a variety of external factors, I have yet to progress past the midpoint of the book. However, I have already had one significant “Aha” moment to share.

Books are a consistent theme that emerge in chronicles of Ashe’s life story. Quite simply, he loved books. In Levels of the Game, John McPhee observed that when he interviewed Ashe at West Point that his room was filled with neat stacks of books. Whirlwind, the biography of Dr. Walter Johnson, mentioned that he required Ashe and the other players in his junior development program to read books about tennis.

Ashe himself wrote several books, one of which Days of Grace, was previously reviewed on this site. Citizen Ashe, the recently released documentary of his life featured a tour of his extensive personal library by his wife. Books were important to Ashe.

In Arthur Ashe: A Life, biographer Raymond Arsenault shares the observation that after the death of his mother when Ashe was only six years old, that books were his refuge that filled the void she left in his life. For lengthy time after her death, Ashe was increasingly shy and withdrawn. It was a point of concern within his family.

The person who eventually drew him out of his shell was Ron Charity, an accomplished tennis player who gave Ashe his first tennis lessons. It was tennis that brought him back to life. Books, however, remained his lifelong refuge and anchor.

While I am not far enough into Arthur Ashe: A Life to write a legitimate review, I have reached the point where I can give the book a strong endorsement. In addition to external factors, one thing that has slowed my reading pace is the intense amount of reflection that this account of his life inspires. I find myself continuously going back and rereading earlier passages.

My real review will come once I complete the full volume. It is the kind of book to savor and I have resolved that I was not going to rush through it to just to hit an arbitrary self-imposed deadline. I think that Ashe would agree with that decision.

	Arthur Ashe: A Life
	Citizen Ashe
	Days of Grace: A Memoir
	Whirlwind: The Godfather of Black Tennis: The Life and Times of Dr. Robert Walter Johnson
	Levels of the Game