Here are some thoughts on Plaxico Burress’ new book “Giant: The Road to the Super Bowl".
- It should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever heard Plax talk that he did not write the book himself. It was ghost written by Jason Cole who acknowledges at the end that he interviewed Burress for hours on end and then produced the book. No big deal since this is usually the case with celebrity biographies.
- Similar to Strahan’s book, which was ghost-written by Jay Glazer, Cole goes out of his way to make the words sound as if they are coming out of Plax’s mouth verbatim. He did a pretty good job based on the number of times he wrote “so then I was like to the guy ‘how you gonna play me like that’” or “that’s just how it was in my neighborhood, you got your ass beat for shit like that.” Overall, I found the tone to be pretty good and preferred the authentic nature of them.
- Other than the dialogue, it’s much different than Strahan’s book. Burress biography reads as a straight biography, documenting his life from childhood, to college, to the pros. It follows this order and then throws in chapters on specific people like his mother, Eli, Shockey and Coughlin. In contrast, Strahan’s book was more about taking you inside life in the NFL where he talks about rookie hazing, the injuries, trash-talking, getting tickets on the road and what its like to play on Sunday.
- It was amazing to read about how much Burress went through last year to play. The ankle injury he got in Week 2 took the ligament off the bone. Then when he slipped in the shower before the Super Bowl he said he could barely walk and had a shoulder injury on top of this. It’s no wonder we Giant fans love the guy so much.
Overall, it was a very good read that I went through in about 4 days on the train. I wish I could have heard more about life in the NFL like in Strahan’s book, but the parts Plax included about his childhood in the mean streets of Virginia made up for this. The stuff about the Super Bowl was amazing as he described how after the Patriots took the lead they started inviting the Giants to their after-party. He also has a nice write-up on how the miracle catch couldn’t have happened to a better person than David Tyree.
Overall: Highly recommended if you’re a Giants fan. Recommended if you’re a football fan.
Here are some tidbits from the book:
- Plax kills his old Michigan State head coach Nick Saban for losing his temper with players in public settings. He said for this reason Saban will never be a successful NFL coach.
- Bill Cowher on the other hand looks like a million bucks. He is described as a straight-shooter who expects the same in return.
- Coughlin doesn’t get nearly as much love as he did in Strahan’s book. “He has rules and you need to follow them,” were Plax’s main sentiments.
- A part I found funny was Burress describing how he got ready before the NFC Championship in Green Bay. Remember in Cool Runnings when the Jamaicans get to Canada and Sanka runs inside and puts on every article of clothing he has? It was pretty much like that.
- Plax loves Eli and talks a lot about what a prankster he is. He said one time Eli painted the O-line’s shoes hot purple. Another time he wiped his bare ass on Plax’s face towel which Plax used 5 minutes later.
- Burress goes on for a few pages about how so many players have kids that they pay child support for. This leads to a classic line in the book where he says “I know this one guy who has so many kids that after he pays child support he is only making $80,000-$90,000 a week. It’s killing him.”
Wow…
-Kobes
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1 comment:
See, I'm not sure I could get down with a book like this.
"That’s just how it was in my neighborhood, you got your ass beat for shit like that.”
All I can think when reading a quote like this is, a) Plax may or may not have actually said that, and b) while I'm too lazy to look up any details about the guy that ghostwrote this, he is probably a middle-aged white dude that has no business writing like that.
To me the whole concept of ghostwriting sounds too put on, too forced. I know, I know, they interview these guys for hours before they write the books. But enough so to produce hundreds of pages of material? At some point, the guy writing it has to be more or less bullshitting, trying to "put himself in Plax's shoes" to get an idea for "what Plax would've done/said." Assuming he's literate (nothing but love for you Plax), I'm sure Plax reads the book before it is published, but I wonder just how carefully he would scrutinize the writer's style.
My feeling is, just write a biography. Ditch the auto. Don't attempt to mimic the subject's voice/feelings, just write from the third person. Even better, though, would be if a guy like Plax--grammatical defincies and all--chose to write the book himself. Imagine that? Cut out the middleman and get right to the source. I think that would be downright fascinating. Not only to get a sense for how articulate guys like Plax are, but also, can you imagine all the random tangents and funny stories guys like Plax would inevitably start drifting off to while trying to write a coherent book? I know there are some like you mentioned Kobes, but I feel like if you cut out the ghostwriter (who can actually write a focused story from beginning to end), these guys would just fill up page after page with ridiculous stuff. For instance, I need to know how fucking nuts and intense Brandon Jacobs must be. Or how much shit Snee gets for being Coughlin's son-in-law. I gotta hear some of the great gay jokes Strahan has endured in the locker room, which has probably led to some classicly homoerotic pranks in the shower. All this and so much more. It'd be gold, Jerry, gold!!
-DanO
P.S. Sounds like Eli gave Plax's towel the same treatment our dear friend Perry Salonia gave your deodorant. Interesting point here though, is that while Plax probably smelled a bit funkier than normal after Eli was through, you actually never smelled better thanks to Perry (and that's not meant as a compliment to Perry).
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