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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Long VIgil: A Great Read!, March 17, 2011
This review is from: Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil (Icons of America) (Hardcover)
Over the years, I've read hundreds and hundreds of books, but I've only read three cover-to-cover in one sitting. The first was To Kill the Potempkin and Mexico Bente Uno, both written by Mark Joseph. The third was Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil, written by Jerome Charyn. Someone once asked me how I could tell a great photograph, and I said to them it's when I bite my bottom lip and under my breath I scream "I wish I made that photo!" That's how I feel about Jerome's latest book. I wish he wrote this book 30 years ago. It would have really helped me understand Joe DiMaggio the Yankee clipper as applicable to my relationship with him as a photographer and member of the press. I found myself screaming "Oh My God I understand now!" Hell, if Joe D. was alive today, he'd understand himself a whole lot better! (A quick antidote- I was photographing a Gerry Cooney fight in San Fransisco for Sports Illustrated and somewhere around 3 o'clock in the afternoon in an almost totally empty cow palace. DiMaggio walked in ringside, sat down in his seat alone. I was approximately 40 feet away setting up a remote camera. I looked over, smiled, no particular response. I went back to where my camera bag was, took out a 300 mm 2.8 lens, focused on a chair near DiMaggio, flipped it to a vertical, looked over the lens before I moved it, glanced at DiMaggio-we made eye contact- and I made 3 frames. Before my finger hit the shutter release to make the 4th, DiMaggio, without saying a word, mouthed "THAT'S ENOUGH". It might as well have been an earthquake.) Mr. Charyn, thank you so much for clearing this up for me. You have written one hell of a great book. I'm going to buy a dozen copies as gifts.
Joe D.
(Originally posted on [...] )
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio, March 15, 2011
This review is from: Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil (Icons of America) (Hardcover)
While browsing "Book Soup" on Sunset, I came across "Joe Di Maggio: The Long Vigil" by Jerome Charyn. It's really interesting. Mainly because it deals with the all-American sports hero not at his career prime nor at the peak of his glory, but his life after the spotlight.
Bios tend to emphasize the drama of their subject's struggle to fame and its eventual realization but in "Vigil" it was interesting to discover Charyn's emphasis on the years after, which were just as tumultuous for DiMaggio, internally at least.
Always private in life and ready to end the glare of the camera by retiring with grace, you nevertheless get a feel for how addictive fame can be (Jay-Z's own lyrics from "Lost One": Fame is / The worst drug known to man / It's stronger than, heroin) by the lack Joe felt once the public glare had left him. This was obviously not helped by marrying a woman who (arguably) became and still is the most famous woman in the world: Marilyn Monroe.
Having read pretty much every Marilyn Monroe bio there is, it was cool to read Charyn's take on the man's side of the story, as regards to their marriage. Losing overwhelming public adoration, while your hot wife is on the exact opposite swing, rising to icon status, seemed to be more psychologically damaging for poor Joe than dealing with the pressure of being a sports star. And yet, ironically, while getting into fits over how unhealthy all this mass attention on his wife was, he was equally obsessed and besotted with her.
The author goes so far as to describe the ex-Yankee as a regular stalker: Even after MM openly declared her love for Arthur Miller and when they were courting at New York's Waldorf Hotel, Joe would "wait in the alleys" outside, hoping to see her come out. And after Miller's and Monroe's marriage dissolved, who was waiting? Joe. He wanted to re-marry her. And let's not forget that Joe did the ultimate uber-romantic gesture of sending six roses to her crypt for twenty years after her death. (Actually I think that's amazing.) But you do get the feeling when you read "Vigil" that one fascination replaced another and MM definitely replaced baseball.
Maybe celebrated personalities, whether sports stars, actresses or singers, are just that. People who can never let go their insane passion for something. And once you give up one passion, it leaves a void for another. As Charyn says, Joe always had "the gallop of someone consuming himself" and when it wasn't baseball it was love/lust for "an electric light."
Anyway, "The Long Vigil" is a cool little book and a new take on showing how the "quieter" years of any star are never that quiet.
(Reviewed on [...])
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Charyn is able to provide the language DiMaggio lacked in describing his life, March 31, 2011
This review is from: Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil (Icons of America) (Hardcover)
Joe DiMaggio as an autistic ballplayer is an interesting concept. Jerome Charyn explores this theory in "Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil." As an incredibly gifted athlete, the renowned New York Yankee excelled at hitting a curve ball out of the park or catching a long fly in centerfield. But away from the game, he lived a secluded life surrounded by a few, select people that he barely even talked to. His social skills were so poor that he had trouble reading his own name off a cue card.
Yet how did such an awkward, insecure man marry Marilyn Monroe? Charyn feels that the relationship was created as the ultimate public relations move. A nude calendar of Marilyn had surfaced and she wanted to rehabilitate her image by staging DiMaggio as her real life leading man. No one was viewed as more stable or reliable than The Yankee Clipper. What she never expected was that he would literally become obsessed with her.
The book is not a straight biography. Charyn inserts his own opinions and at times writes in the first person. At under 150 pages of text, it is not an overwhelming read. Instead it is a unique look at a man whose iconic status is tempered by very human flaws. His unbreakable concentration on the ballfield left him mentally drained and physically exhausted. This intensely driven quest for perfection was unendurable, yet it was a pattern he followed throughout his life. His sense of discipline was unmatched, but it lacked the heart and emotion that would allow others to connect with him. By keeping himself aloof and distant, Charyn describes DiMaggio as being above the world around him and not part of it.
A poignant passage revolves around DiMaggio's most legendary achievement - his 56 game hitting streak in 1941. Charyn gives a rich, textured account transporting the reader back to that moment in time. Europe is in the midst of World War II, and the United States is on the brink. Americans are nervous, scared and uncertain. DiMaggio was their national distraction. Would he get a hit? Would he keep the streak alive? His heroics on the field provided Americans with a sense of hope during a dark hour.
For a man who didn't even talk much to his own teammates, life after baseball became an odyssey of extreme loneliness for DiMaggio. He was like an ex-president - a once powerful man now removed from his lofty position. He was aimless and adrift. He did the autograph circuit until he dropped making millions, yet receiving little personal satisfaction. He died basically alone in a hospital room reportedly saying his last words to a nurse who was attending him. It was a sad and pathetic end for a life so revered.
While short in length, the book is chock full of details and interesting tidbits. Subjects range from Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle to Paul Simon and Frank Sinatra. Charyn expertly and proficiently covers the major areas of DiMaggio's life in a succinct manner. Told chronologically, it reads more like a page-turning, in-depth magazine profile than a droll, just-the-facts reference book.
Charyn looks at the big picture. He encourages the reader to remember DiMaggio for his dogged determination and his strict adherence to duty. He provided inspiration to his team on the field playing through injury and illness. He brutally forced his mind to focus so he would never be seen making a mistake. He gave it his all - every time. While he couldn't obtain the perfection he so strived for, he never gave up on the two things that mattered the most to him - baseball and Marilyn Monroe.
Overall, Charyn is able to provide the language DiMaggio lacked in describing his life.
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