Evel

Starred review from June 13, 2011
Best-selling author Montville (The Big Bam) takes on the controversial daredevil Evel Knievel revealing an intimate, often alarming, and ultimately sad portrait of a man who lived precariously, both on and off his motorcycle. Deemed by Montville the first reality TV star, Evel's career dates back to a stunt on ABC'S Wide World of Sports in 1967. A former insurance salesman and small-town criminal, Knievel became famous by advertising himself, often falsely; during a press conference to announce his jump over Idaho's Snake River Canyon, he accepted a $6 million check that turned out to be promotional nonsense. Montville's riveting journalistic style includes memorable scenes, many starring young women suggestively attired, Knievel's walking cane loaded with Wild Turkey bourbon and employees verbally trampled by the man's unpredictable behavior. The author recounts stories with eye-popping details, including Knievel's failed jumps over the fountains of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and over the Snake River Canyon. The combination of Knievel's rambunctious lifestyle and Montville's lively prose produces a page-turner almost as exhilarating as landing a record-breaking jump.

May 1, 2011

Inside the life and entertainment career of America's greatest daredevil, who lived "as if his pants were on fire."

Bestselling author and veteran sports columnist Montville (The Mysterious Montague: A True Tale of Hollywood, Golf, and Armed Robbery, 2008, etc.) points to the first biography of flamboyant risk-taker Robert Craig Knievel (1938–2007) as a cheaply commissioned, "cockeyed" screenplay (George Hamilton starred, angling for a career revival) based on "a collection of tall tales designed by the man himself to make people perk up and pay attention." It was 1971, and while the film critically tanked, the publicity skyrocketed Knievel's his popularity. Montville's version ably describes his childhood raised by his grandparents in depression-era Butte, Mont., and then as a young, street-educated loner and general troublemaker. Greatly entertaining and anecdotal, the narrative covers the controversial aspects of the high flier's history, tracking Knievel's fearlessness as record-breaking smaller motorcycle tricks gave way to power-tripping death-wish jumps marked by countless broken bones, hospitalizations and even a coma—all observed by wife Linda and their three children. Whether cruising the talk-show circuit in a zebra-striped leisure suit, crashing onto the pavement at Caesar's Palace or serving six months in jail for assaulting an event promoter, Knievel consistently treated his adoring (often aghast) fan base to reckless extravaganzas, increasingly perilous stunts and erratic, unbecoming behavior. Montville confidently narrates Knievel's daredevilry with characteristic panache and presents his subject as a "one man ethical dilemma" who spent the bulk of his career testing the limits of his physical prowess with an unquenchable thirst for fame and fortune.

A biography as sensationalist and superior as the daredevil himself.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 1, 2010

We all know Evel Knievel (d. 2007) the death-defying stuntman and extreme sportsman before there was any such thing. Now, best-selling author Montville, a former columnist for the Boston Globe and former senior writer at Sports Illustrated, shows us the real Evel. It seems that lots of people want to know; there's a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2011
Between you and me and the skeletons in the closet, Evel Knievel was not a very good motorcycle rider, pro rider Eddie Mulder said of his more-famous peer. In fact, Knievel probably earned more recognition from his spectacular failureshis New Year's Eve crash at Caesar's Palace (1967), his aborted jump over Idaho's Snake River Canyon (1974)than for his successes. But such failures gave to Knievel's rapt public a visceral realism through the mortal danger the motorcyclist faced each of the many times he performed. Montville fully imparts that sense of danger as well as Knievel's mixture of singularly unpleasant personalitiesthief, drunkard, brawler, extortionist, womanizer, snake-oil salesman, all-purpose con manthat somehow only enhanced his legend. In the end, readers probably will not love or even like Knievel, but they'll know the seamier side of the American dream that much better. Expect interest because of the author as well as the subject, for Montville (The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth, 2006; Ted Williams, 2004) has a following among sports-biography fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2011

Inside the life and entertainment career of America's greatest daredevil, who lived "as if his pants were on fire."

Bestselling author and veteran sports columnist Montville (The Mysterious Montague: A True Tale of Hollywood, Golf, and Armed Robbery, 2008, etc.) points to the first biography of flamboyant risk-taker Robert Craig Knievel (1938-2007) as a cheaply commissioned, "cockeyed" screenplay (George Hamilton starred, angling for a career revival) based on "a collection of tall tales designed by the man himself to make people perk up and pay attention." It was 1971, and while the film critically tanked, the publicity skyrocketed Knievel's his popularity. Montville's version ably describes his childhood raised by his grandparents in depression-era Butte, Mont., and then as a young, street-educated loner and general troublemaker. Greatly entertaining and anecdotal, the narrative covers the controversial aspects of the high flier's history, tracking Knievel's fearlessness as record-breaking smaller motorcycle tricks gave way to power-tripping death-wish jumps marked by countless broken bones, hospitalizations and even a coma--all observed by wife Linda and their three children. Whether cruising the talk-show circuit in a zebra-striped leisure suit, crashing onto the pavement at Caesar's Palace or serving six months in jail for assaulting an event promoter, Knievel consistently treated his adoring (often aghast) fan base to reckless extravaganzas, increasingly perilous stunts and erratic, unbecoming behavior. Montville confidently narrates Knievel's daredevilry with characteristic panache and presents his subject as a "one man ethical dilemma" who spent the bulk of his career testing the limits of his physical prowess with an unquenchable thirst for fame and fortune.

A biography as sensationalist and superior as the daredevil himself.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)