Body Politic

David Shields is a professor of English at the University of Washington and the author of seven previous books, including Heroes: A Novel and Black Planet: Facing Race during an NBA Season, both available in Bison Books editions. Robert Lipsyte, a longtime sports and city columnist for the New York Times, is the author of sixteen books, including most recently the novel Raiders Night.

"Shields has carved out a singular place for himself as the poet of sports writing."—Regina Hackett, Seattle Post-Intelligencer "[Shields is] one of the most necessary, if discomfiting, commentators on American sports today. In this collection of slyly observant, personally inflected essays, he patiently lays out the various elements of athletic myth that come wrapped seamlessly around other signature American obsessions—money, celebrity, self-reliance and, most of all, race."—Chris Lehman, Washington Post "[Shields] elucidates superbly the paradox of sports coverage: although feats of the body seem to defy language, sports is nonetheless 'imprisoned by its prevailing rhetoric.' The ambition in these piercing essays is to discern the reality behind the rhetoric."—Daniel G. Habib, Sports Illustrated "Sweeping insights . . . an intellectual tour de force."—Steve Weinberg, St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Like Charles Barkley, Shields is outspoken, controversial, and never dull."—Minneapolis Star Tribune "A thinking person's collection of sports essays. . . . The author is a mild, reflective man who suspects there is a strong element of resurrection and salvation in sports . . . and who can cobble together a fluid chapter out of sporting clichés: ten pages that sound either like wacky Shakespeare or a whole lot of ironic license plates tied end-to-end. Pensive and shrewd."—Kirkus

• Introduction by Robert LipsyteThe Wound and the Bow: A Long PrologueOn the Need to Connect with Something Larger than YourselfFairy Tale of Reinvention and EscapeWords Can't Begin to Describe What I'm FeelingHeaven Is a PlaygroundFandomHistory of America, #34How It Feels to Be a ProblemMyths of PlaceA Little Euro Trash-TalkBeing IchiroMatsui Among the AmericansBring the PainBeing Random Is the Key to Life42 Tattoos: An Epilogue