Reviews

"Perfect 6.0s across the board, Christine Brennan, for technical and artistic merit."
--"Atlanta Journal-Constitution"
"Riveting expose...A perfect primer."
--"People"
""Inside Edge" reads like a magazine article you can't put down."
--"Hartford Courant"
"Christine Brennan has opened a window onto the diverse personalities and backgrounds that make figure skating so interesting. It's the most revealing sport of all--and this book takes you inside of it."
--Peggy Fleming

Washington Post sports reporter Brennan knows all the greats in figure skating‘past, present and probably future. So she is superbly qualified to do a book about the sport. And, she counsels, make no mistake: despite all the talk of style and grace, it is nonetheless a competitive sport, but unique in that women are more important than men at the box office and in the officials' offices. Here she follows the season from October 1994 to the Nationals held the following February, concentrating largely on the likely stars of tomorrow. Of course she touches on the Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan imbroglio and the arrest of U.S. champ Nicole Bobek on a burglary charge (later dismissed), but she is less interested in scandal than in showing how a year's work and tens of thousands in parental dollars can be lost by a couple of missteps in a single four-minute program. She demonstrates how the homosexuality of many‘perhaps most‘of the men in the sport is covered up, how quixotic the judging is and how the sport is becoming more like tennis as it attracts younger participants and more high-powered agents. In short, she covers every aspect thoroughly and candidly in this fine volume. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (Jan.)

YA‘Championship figure skating is not all sequins and spandex. It is hard work and heartbreak, practice and programs. Skaters train rigorously for years, only to have their ultimate success depend upon a four-minute program or even a four-second triple jump. Failure, or even hesitation, at this point often ends a career. Brennan has covered figure-skating for the Washington Post for 11 years. She brings a love of her sport and a crisp, clear writing style to a topic sure to interest many YAs. Loosely structured around the six-month competitive season, the text covers everything from the development of the sport, through changes in the competitive requirements, to the media bonanza that it has become. The author interviews and profiles many skaters, known and forgotten, coaches, parents, and judges along the way. While this is not exactly an exposé, it is a hard look at the realities of a sport more applauded for its personalities and their appearances than their athletic excellence. Brennan doesn't flinch from chastising the U.S. Figure Skating Association for attempting to ignore the impact of AIDS on the sport or from discussing the homosexuality of many of the skaters. Easily read and digested, this title should make readers watch these athletes with new understanding and think twice before they commit to the demanding life of a championship figure skater.‘Susan H. Woodcock, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA