Approaching Ali

November 2, 2015
Journalist Miller (The Tao of Bruce Lee) here explores his long fascination with boxing icon Muhammad Ali and their eventual friendship. As a sickly, undersized teenager in North Carolina in the 1960s, Miller clung to the exploits of Ali as an escape from the loss of his mother and the bullying he suffered. Throughout various reinventions—competitive kickboxer, journalist, editor, father—Miller never lost his focus on Ali and eventually became enough of an intimate to serve as the Boswell of the champ’s post-boxing life, which was increasingly affected by Parkinson’s syndrome. Hero worship provides the impetus for the memoir, but Miller doesn’t ignore Ali’s philandering and his abuse of Joe Frazier, or the mounting damage wrought by Parkinson’s. In clear, observant prose, Miller details how the most outspoken and graceful heavyweight of all time now struggles to knot a tie or make himself understood. Yet in the wreck of “the black Superman,” Miller discovers and celebrates a spiritual Ali, a bodhisattva molded by the unlikely path of boxing and the Nation of Islam. Miller writes affectingly of his own life as well, a tactic that deepens the impressionistic swirl of his meetings with Ali. Readers may not share Miller’s adulation, but his engagement and journalistic integrity provide a unique perspective on a man he portrays as a hero for the world.

November 1, 2015

Muhammad Ali (b. 1942) is one of the most fascinating and famous individuals in the past century. In his latest work, Miller (The Tao of Muhammad Ali) brings together for the first time many of his individual essays and longer pieces on Ali into one coherent tale. Miller first meets the star by simply driving to his mother's house in Louisville (as Ali says it, "Loovul") in the late 1980s. The author befriends Ali, but he isn't trying to use him; he just wants to get to know his childhood hero. The short tale, "My Dinner with Ali," was published in the Louisville Courier-Journal Magazine shortly afterward and became a critical success for Miller. (The title of this book also lent itself to the creation of an opera by composer D.J. Sparr for the Washington National Opera.) VERDICT Most surprisingly, from 1994 until 2014, Miller and Ali did not speak or see each other. Rabid fans of Muhammad Ali will want to read this but may be disappointed by the lack of information on the past 20 years of their idol's life.--Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll. Lib., Elkhorn, WI

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