Kate Buford

THE NEW YORK TIMES (Editors' Choice): "Buford . . . lays a firm, clear historical groundwork for the reservation life and Indian world in which Thorpe grew up in Oklahoma.... Brims with life in its depiction of Hollywood during the 1930s and '40s.... Through Thorpe's struggles and striving, Buford recreates this period of Los Angeles history in all its glorious strangeness."

Buzz Bissinger: "Superb."
Charlie Pierce: "Fascinating."
David Brinkley: "A terrific biography of Thorpe. Just mesmerizing."

WINNER - PFRA (Professional Football Researchers Association)
2010 NELSON ROSS AWARD for recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.

WINNER - Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) 2011 Larry Ritter Award

Finalist 2011 Oklahoma Book Award

WASHINGTON POST - "Buford ... knows about mythic heroes and draws a complex portrait of Jim Thorpe: from his superhuman athletic talents to his all-too-human flaws."

DETROIT METRO TIMES: "Kate Buford’s excellent biography ... not only is it the moving story of an early Olympic hero and mythical football great, it also chronicles how the rules of football changed in the 1900s and ’10s, becoming less a rugby scrum and more the game we know today."

AMERICAN HERITAGE - "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."

LIBRARY JOURNAL - "This is the definitive biography of a legendary figure in American history, in and out of sports. An essential purchase."

KIRKUS REVIEWS - "An impeccably researched biography of one of the world's greatest all-around athletes, a symbol of racial injustice and untapped potential."

HISTORY BOOK CLUB - Featured Selection
"The first comprehensive biography of Jim Thorpe, arguably the greatest all-around athlete the United States has ever seen, Native American Son is a story long overdue. Here is the story of a complex, iconoclastic, profoundly talented man whose life encompassed both tragic limitations and truly extraordinary achievements."

TUCSON CITIZEN - "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 icon."

BOOKLIST - "Buford's account . . . brims with detail, all of it relevant to the telling, from the disastrous divvying up of Native American land that young Jim witnessed in 1890s Oklahoma, to Thorpe's stellar performance in football, baseball, and track and field; to the stripping of his Olympic medals because he was paid to play baseball for two summers; and,finally, to the makeshift life he cobbled together after his playing days ended. Buford imparts a sense of the incandescent skills Thorpe applied to his sports, and the discrimination and self-destruction that shadowed him throughout his life."

Featured Selection: BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB and THE HISTORY BOOK CLUB