Dr. J: The Autobiography

by Julius Erving, Karl Taro Greenfeld

Overview

An honest, unflinching self-portrait of the basketball legend, told in Julius "The Doctor" Erving's own voice. "A terrific memoir by a man worthy of one." —Sports Illustrated

With his flights of improvisation around the basket and his towering Afro, Julius Erving became one of the most charismatic (and revolutionary) players basketball has ever known. But while the public has long revered this cultural icon, few have known the double life of Julius Erving.

Dr. J explores the inner world of the nearly perfect player and the imperfect man—and how he has come to terms with both.

"A deeply personal and almost shockingly honest book." —New York Daily News

"There's enough basketball here to keeps fans interested, but the book isn't really about what happens on the court. It's about a thoughtful man who, for a time in his youth, was a famous athlete. A rewarding reading experience." —Booklist

"The NBA's most transformative player submits an unusually revealing autobiography." —Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062188038
Publisher:	Harper
Publication date:	02/27/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	611
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Julius Erving is one of the greatest professional basketball players of all time and an American icon. He lives in Atlanta with his family. This is his first book.

Karl Taro Greenfeld is the author of seven previous books, including the novel Triburbia and the acclaimed memoir Boy Alone. His award-winning writing has appeared in Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Best American Short Stories 2009 and 2013, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012. Born in Kobe, Japan, he has lived in Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, and currently lives in Pacific Palisades, California, with his wife, Silka, and their daughters, Esmee and Lola.

Editorial Reviews

A deeply personal and almost shockingly honest book.” — New York Daily News

“There’s enough basketball here to keeps fans interested, but the book isn’t really about what happens on the court. It’s about a thoughtful man who, for a time in his youth, was a famous athlete. A rewarding reading experience.” — Booklist

“The NBA’s most transformative player submits an unusually revealing autobiography.” — Kirkus Reviews

“The book is quite an accomplishment: a terrific memoir by a man worthy of one.” — Sports Illustrated

From the Publisher

The book is quite an accomplishment: a terrific memoir by a man worthy of one.

Sports Illustrated

There’s enough basketball here to keeps fans interested, but the book isn’t really about what happens on the court. It’s about a thoughtful man who, for a time in his youth, was a famous athlete. A rewarding reading experience.

Booklist

A deeply personal and almost shockingly honest book.

New York Daily News

A deeply personal and almost shockingly honest book.

New York Daily News

There’s enough basketball here to keeps fans interested, but the book isn’t really about what happens on the court. It’s about a thoughtful man who, for a time in his youth, was a famous athlete. A rewarding reading experience.

Booklist

2013-10-20
The NBA's most transformative player submits an unusually revealing autobiography. During the 1970s, when officials still bothered to call traveling and palming violations, the high-flying Erving arrived and, nevertheless, managed to do things with a basketball no one had ever seen. For years, basketball's best-kept secret, "Dr. J" ("more moves than Dr. Carter has liver pills") played his college ball at low-profile UMass and then for five years with the fledgling ABA, a league with no national TV contract. When the ABA merged with the NBA, Erving signed with the Philadelphia 76ers and played another 11. With Greenfeld's aid (Triburbia, 2012, etc.), he covers the basketball triumphs, the especially crazy days of the ABA, the All-Star games, the MVP awards and the championships, and he comments throughout on some of his better-known mentors (Bill Russell, Walt Frazier, John Havlicek), teammates (Daryl Dawkins, Moses Malone, Maurice Cheeks) and opponents (Larry Bird, Magic Johnson). Fans will appreciate his surprising takes on players like Pete Maravich, Bernard King and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Erving's own assessment of the evolution of his game, and his tales of mixing with a black elite that included the likes of Bill Cosby, Arthur Ashe and Miles Davis. They might not expect the attention he devotes to struggle and loss: the premature death of an already absentee father; the spare poverty of his Long Island childhood; the early death of a younger brother to asthma and, later, of an older sister to cancer; the family visits to the Jim Crow South and the adult encounters with the modern civil rights movement; the delinquency of his children and the death of a son; his lifelong struggle with fidelity. Erving's reverence for rules and order and his simultaneous passion for improvisation have played out in his private life as well, not always to good effect. A good enough treatment of the phenomenon called "Dr. J" and an especially thoughtful account of the man, Julius Erving.

Kirkus Reviews