Publishers Weekly
★ 01/29/2024
Sports biographies don’t get much better than this enthralling and tragic account of the career of Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time hits leader. Sportswriter O’Brien (Paradise Falls) describes how Rose was pressed from an early age by his father (whose own dreams of a pro baseball career were never realized) to excel at sports. Despite being small for his age, Rose had an exceptional drive and passion that helped him excel on the citywide team he played with in his teens. After a few years in the minor leagues, Rose earned a spot on the Cincinnati Reds in 1963 and was named the National League’s Rookie of the Year. The portrait that emerges is empathetic yet balanced, with breathless recaps of Rose’s first championship season in 1975 and 44-game hitting streak in 1978 tempered by troubling discussions of his yearslong affair with an underage high schooler when he was in his 30s and the gambling addiction that left him barred from induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame (in 2004, Rose confirmed allegations that he bet on the Reds while playing for and managing the team in the 1980s). O’Brien movingly depicts Rose as an everyman who willed his own greatness only to succumb to his baser impulses, and the rich research draws on extensive interviews with players, federal investigators, and Rose himself. Definitive and elegantly told, this is a home run. Agent: Richard Abate, 3 Arts Entertainment. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
O’Brien has crafted a sort of American tragedy . . . . [He] deftly builds suspense and narrative friction.”
—The New York Times
“Vivid. . . . Charlie Hustle gets better and better as it builds to Rose’s ultimate downfall. . . . O’Brien ends his fantastic book in grand walk-off fashion, painting a brilliant, harrowing picture of Rose today.”
—The Washington Post
"I’m not sure there’s ever been a book that does a better job of sketching out [Pete Rose] than Keith O’Brien’s...comprehensive, compulsively readable and wholly terrific."
—Wall Street Journal
“Pete Rose remains one of baseball’s most infamous figures—both legend and pariah. Featuring extensive interviews with Rose himself, O’Brien’s definitive biography chronicles Rose’s extraordinary rise and his fall from grace.”
—Esquire
"Meticulous. . . . Engaging. . . .The timing couldn’t be better to pick up Charlie Hustle.”
—Commonwealth
“[An] epic about hubris and, in the figure of the disgraced Cincinnati Red, moral vacancy.”
—Chicago Tribune
“As much as many fans of the game want to forget this sordid tale, Keith O'Brien reminds us of its centrality to the story of our National Pastime. It's a dazzling, soaring accomplishment, a counterpoint to the tragic fall of one of the game's greatest, brought on entirely by his own hubris, arrogance and insolent disregard for baseball's stern code.”
—Ken Burns
“Pete Rose's epic life demands the epic treatment, and Keith O'Brien marvelously takes on the challenge. He captures the dizzying heights and calamitous lows but even more, finds the humanity of the man who lived a sports life unlike any other.”
—Joe Posnanski, New York Times bestselling author of Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments
“I’ve never liked Pete Rose. I'm not sure many people have liked Pete Rose. But he also may well be the most fascinating pro athlete of the last century. And that's what makes Keith O’Brien's richly reported, beautifully written Charlie Hustle so damn good. It's riveting. It's engrossing. And, like Rose, it's impossible to ignore.”
—Jeff Pearlman, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Folk Hero
“Charlie Hustle is a thoroughly-reported, up-to-date account of a tragic American sports star. Keith O’Brien takes us through the highs and lows of Pete Rose’s rise and fall. Even if you think you already know it all, read this book. This is powerful new stuff.”
—Dan Shaughnessy, New York Times bestselling author of Francona
“Baseball biography at its best. With Charlie Hustle, Pete Rose finally gets the book he deserves, and baseball fans get the book we’ve been craving, a hard-hitting, beautifully-written tale that will stand for years to come as the definitive account of one of the most fascinating figures in American sports history.”
—Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author of King: A Life
“Sports biographies don’t get much better than this enthralling and tragic account. . . . Definitive and elegantly told, this is a home run.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Brilliant. . . . A gripping portrait. . . . [Charlie Hustle] leaves little doubt that the definitive account of the life and times of [Pete] Rose belongs to O’Brien. A masterpiece of a sports biography and a must-read for baseball fans.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
APRIL 2024 - AudioFile
Ellen Adair handles this biography of Pete Rose beautifully, with clear enunciation and pronunciation, letting the rich and troubled life of baseball's all-time hits leader stand for what it is. Rose was a homegrown Cincinnati guy who went on to star for the Reds. But his off-field pursuits--gambling, an extramarital affair, and a lack of solid friendships--mar his legacy. Adair carries the narration of this fascinating, well-researched audiobook with a consistent tone and no imitations of quotes. She and the author both lay out Rose's life, one of the most polarizing in baseball history, and one that has kept the star out of the Hall of Fame. M.B. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-10-21
An award-winning journalist tells the story of a baseball player who exhibited relentless hustle on and off the field.
O’Brien, the author of Fly Girls and Outside Shot, delivers a gripping portrait of fellow Cincinnati native Pete Rose (b. 1941). The author paints a vivid portrait of the simultaneously glorious and reckless life of Major League Baseball’s hit king, whose raw strength and work ethic symbolized baseball and the American dream itself, yet who gambled his way permanently out of baseball and its Hall of Fame, leaving a wake of bitter disappointment as he sped through life with the same air of tenacious invincibility that marked his play. O’Brien’s meticulous style captures Rose’s unlikely journey to his hometown Reds and his often complex relationships with teammates and opponents alike. Rose won every conceivable honor that a position player can win, but his addictions to gambling, women, and expensive cars belied his all-American image. O’Brien’s construction of the book is brilliant, offering a thorough examination of Rose as a sort of baseball Janus: Rose took the mocking sobriquet given to him by Yankee royalty Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford as a badge of honor and never yielded on the field, but he conducted himself off the diamond as Charlie Hustler, a man who invited a rogues’ gallery of hangers-on, gamblers, and drug dealers to his inner circle and ultimately doomed his legacy. O’Brien’s work is so well researched and adheres to traditional journalistic standards in such a way that it is, by any objective measure, as fair as possible to all the principle figures, particularly Rose himself, whom the author interviewed several times. The text leaves little doubt that the definitive account of the life and times of Rose belongs to O’Brien.
A masterpiece of a sports biography and a must-read for baseball fans.
