MARSHALL JON FISHER's work has appeared in The Atlantic, Harper's, and other magazines. His essay "Memoria ex Machina" was featured in Best American Essays 2003. He has written several books with his father, David E. Fisher, including Tube- The Invention of Television. Marshall lives in the Berkshires with his wife
“Rich and rewarding…makes a strong claim to greatest-ever status
for Budge vs. Cramm in the Davis Cup…Fisher brings a sharp eye for
details. He vividly sketches the anything-goes atmosphere of Weimar
Berlin [and] turns up details that tennis fans will savor.”
—Wall Street Journal
“Tennis has seen plenty of great matches…but none with the
extra-athletic significance of the Budge-Cramm affair…as the match
enters its final set, all the narrative pieces lock together and A
Terrible Splendor becomes as engrossing as the contest it
portrays...Cramm’s life is a movie development deal waiting to
happen.”
—Washington Post
“Richly detailed…the story moves from one nail-biting set to the
next against a backdrop of improbably high personal and political
stakes.”
—Boston Globe
“Vivid…The compelling nature of the match, in tennis terms alone,
would be enough to make this a gripping read…But tennis is almost
the least interesting element of Fisher’s account. For the historic
match between the two players took place in London, with the world
poised for brutal war and the players bringing all manger of
psychological baggage on court with them….[Fisher] shows how sport
can stand both outside the ‘real world,’ and yet remain subject to
its dark whims.”
—Financial Times
“Exciting…a thoroughly riveting account of an intense human
endeavor…the astonishing, inspiring story of a sports hero who was
not merely a heroic tennis player, but a genuinely heroic man.”
—The Commercial Dispatch
"Marshall Jon Fisher has masterfully woven the story of Europe on
the edge of war, a man pursued by the Gestapo, and America on the
rise into the tale of the greatest tennis match of the century. A
Terrible Splendor is tense, tragic, beautifully told, and immensely
enjoyable."
—Atul Gawande, National Book Award Finalist and New York Times
bestseller author of Complications and Better
"Forget Federer versus Nadal, and Borg versus McEnroe. Marshall Jon
Fisher convincingly demonstrates that the greatest tennis match of
all time was Gottried Von Cramm versus Don Budge in the 1937 Davis
Cup semifinals. This is one of the best sports books you will ever
read. But it's more than a sports book: as absorbing as the drama
unfolding on Wimbledon's Centre Court is, it's surpassed by the
drama of history swirling outside it. Fisher masterfully weaves
biography, history, and sports--and sex and romance and the drums
of war--into a thoroughly riveting narrative. Full of ironic twists
and astonishing revelations, A Terrible Splendor is a literary
triumph."
—Scott Stossel, Deputy Editor, Atlantic Monthly
“Marshall Jon Fisher has turned a tennis court masterpiece --
American Don Budge versus German Gottfried von Cramm to decide the
1937 Davis Cup -- into a literary masterpiece. Blending
their lives with the darkening times, Fisher illuminates bygone
cultures in the fascinating tale of a July afternoon in
London.”
—Bud Collins, writer for the Boston Globe and commentator for ESPN
and Tennis Channel
“There could be no more disparate characters in any sport than Bib
Bill Tilden, Don Budge and Baron Gottfried von Cramm. Marshall Jon
Fisher has done a marvelous job of weaving the threads of these
three lives together at a time when the world was coming apart and
at the moment when Budge and von Cramm were playing in the most
important — if not the best — tennis match ever. This is sports
history at its finest and most thorough.”
—Frank Deford, Senior Contributing Writer, Sports Illustrated, and
Commentator on NPR’s “Morning Edition”
“Through the prism of one of the greatest tennis matches ever
played, Marshall Jon Fisher throws open a window on the terrifying
world of the thirties in Europe; illuminating in vivid detail the
persecution of Baron Gottfried von Cramm; the pitiful kow-towing to
Hitler by the tennis authorities and, rising above it all, the
innate sportsmanship of the two friends and rivals, von Cramm and
Donald Budge. Between every Budge backhand and von Cramm volley,
history rears up in all its ‘terrible splendor.’”
—Richard Evans, Correspondent, The (London) Observor
“For those of us who believe that tennis is a metaphor for life,
here at last in this marvelous narrative is proof, served up on the
rackets of Budge and Von Cramm. A Terrible Splendor is a
wonderful account of a time of great historical drama, with the
world on the brink of war, and everything resting, or so it would
seem, on getting the ball back over the net just one more
time.”
—Abraham Verghese, author of The Tennis Partner and Cutting for
Stone
"I’m grateful for my ignorance of tennis history, since if I’d
known the outcome of the 1937 Davis Cup match before I read this
engrossing book, I might not have sat on the edge of my seat and
bitten my nails as Don Budge and Gottfried von Cramm served and
volleyed. Marshall Jon Fisher captures two memorable characters,
illuminates their historical and cultural milieus, and keeps us in
delicious suspense."
—Anne Fadiman, author of the National Book Critics Circle
Award-winning The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and the New
York Times bestseller Ex Libris
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