“From the first page to the last, Klein’s prose retains its powers of enchantment and illumination.
It is one of the best boxing books ever penned.” —
Boston Globe“John L. Sullivan was perhaps the first real American sports superstar, and especially because he meant so much as a minority champion, he prefigured Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Billie Jean King and the many other athletes who became genuine heroes to the people they represented. The Great John L. is as important a cultural figure as he was a sports idol.” —Frank Deford, journalist,
Sports Illustrated senior contributing writer, author of
Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter “You don’t have to be a boxing fan to want to time travel back to the 1880s and sample some nickel beer, free lunch, horse trolleys, and the Babel of immigrants. Christopher Klein, in this well-researched book, delivers the sportin’ life of the Gilded Age when Americans crowned their first athlete-king, John L. Sullivan, in coast-to-coast banner headlines.” —Richard Zacks, best-selling author of
Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt’s Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York"[A] treasure trove of information that covers sports, celebrity, crime, politics and entertainment as [Christopher Klein] tracks the John L. Sullivan, "Boston Strong Boy," across the country and globe as he rises from the tenement to the heavyweight championship and everything that came with it."
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Publishers Weekly"A well-researched, enjoyable biography of boxing's first heavyweight superstar, John L. Sullivan (1858–1918).... Attentive as he is to historical details, Klein’s storytelling gift is most evident in how he depicts 'John L.' as a beloved hero who was eventually undone by ego and who had a legendary appetite for food and drink. Though largely forgotten, Sullivan was the great 'American Hercules' who ruled the late-19th-century boxing world and helped usher it into the modern sporting age.... A lively, consistently entertaining sports biography."
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Kirkus Reviews
“Christopher Klein gives readers a ringside seat for one of the greatest boxing careers in history. The descriptions of the fights are quick and powerful—like one of John L.’s punches—and the Boston Strong Boy’s life story unfolds with wonderfully vivid detail. The Sweet Science deserves beautiful writing like this.”
—Bob Halloran, author of Irish Thunder: The Hard Life and Times of Micky Ward, and Impact Statement: A Family's Fight for Justice against Whitey Bulger, Stephen Flemmi, and the FBI
“Christopher Klein’s action-crammed account of the life and times of John L. Sullivan packs the wallop of the Boston Strong Boy’s legendary right fist. The magnetic, deeply flawed Sullivan comes back to life in this fascinating visit to the seedy, bare-knuckled culture of America’s nineteenth century beneath its Victorian gloss.” —Edward Achorn, author of
The Summer of Beer and Whiskey: How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America's Game and
Fifty-nine in ’84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had “Christopher Klein’s
Strong Boy is a well-researched look at a forgotten hero: modern boxing’s first heavyweight champion. It’s a go-to resource on John L. Sullivan’s personal life, his ring career, and the era in which he thrived. For all the talk about ‘the man who beat the man,’ here’s a work that documents the man himself.” —John Florio, author of
One Punch from the Promised Land: Leon Spinks, Michael Spinks and the Myth of the Heavyweight Title “Sports biography at its best. Rich in period detail, anecdote, and fresh perspective,
Strong Boy paints both the good and the bad sides of success, as America’s growing celebrity culture turned a simple Irish American gladiator into a national, in fact international hero. A very human story with profound parallels for our sports-obsessed culture today!” —Nigel Hamilton, author of
Biography: A Brief History and
The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941–1942 “This admirable biography has a
Citizen Kane feel to it:
Strong Boy both celebrates John L. Sullivan as a sports hero and lights up the pathos of Sullivan the man-child. If he could ‘lick any son-of-a bitch in the world,’ John L. could out-drink and out-eat all contenders. The first million-dollar man in sports died broke. Christopher Klein does justice to the legend, the man, and the times.” —Jack Beatty, author of
The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley, 1874–1958 
