Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe Hardcover - 2010

Media reviews

“Diligently researched . . . Buford lays firm, clear historical groundwork for the reservation life and Indian world in which Thorpe grew up . . . Thorpe, in Buford’s account a likable and engaging if feckless man, seems tragically destined to wander forever, the fastest itinerant in the world.”
            -Jay Jennings, The New York Times Book Review
 
“A professional biographer has proved what sound research and skillful writing can do: reveal a singular man, animate the times of his life, and illuminate the complexities of our world today, which Jim Thorpe helped to shape.”
            -American Heritage
 
“Compelling . . . Exhilarating . . . Buford is persuasive when she insists that, both for better and for worse, Jim Thorpe’s true story is indeed stranger than most fictional tales of rising and falling heroes.”
            -Michael R. Stevens, Christianity Today Books and Culture
 
“This is the definitive biography of a legendary figure in American history, in and out of sports . . . An essential purchase.”
            -Library Journal
 
“Buford . . . knows about mythic heroes and draws a complex portrait of Jim Thorpe: from his superhuman athletic talents to his all-too-human flaws.”           
           -Steven V. Roberts, The Washington Post
 
“This book is written with razor-sharp clarity, rock-solid scholarship, and a prose that is as elegantly executed as it is at times heartbreaking. Native American Son, meticulously researched, is a book that finally sets the record straight to provide justice at last to a legitimate American hero.”
            -Larry Cox, Tucson Citizen
 
“An absorbing American story.”
            -Steve Kaufman, Louisville Courier-Journal
 
 “Impeccably researched . . . This retrospective is not the first to tackle the complex life of Jim Thorpe, but it’s the most comprehensive . . . Captures Thorpe’s breathtaking highs and heartrending lows.”
            -Kirkus
 
“From the opening paragraphs I realized that Native American Son was going to be gripping and illuminating. Kate Buford not only tells us a great deal we never knew about a legitimate American icon, she tells us a great deal about an America of which we may not have been fully aware, and does so in splendid prose.”
           -Ira Berkow
 
“As an athlete, Jim Thorpe was a force of nature. His achievements, across the board, remain unsurpassed. For many years we have needed a fair and comprehensive story of his life. Now we have it. Kate Buford's biography of Thorpe is a first-rate example of the genre. She has written—with clarity, insight, objectivity, and inspiration—a definitive work. Here is an evocation of triumph and tragedy, ans a uniquely American story.”
            -N. Scott Momaday