Queen of the Court

Praise for To the New Owners: [An] evocative memoir . . . Blais comes to her subject with two major advantages: She's a deft and witty Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and her husband's parents were well-connected powerhouses . . . To the New Owners sparkles when Blais focuses on her family's frequently funny experiences . . . Blais pointedly showcases the simpler, more modest and, alas, rapidly disappearing old Vineyard she loves. Unfortunately, the changes she mourns are happening everywhere. Which makes records like this all the more valuable.Washington Post For anyone who has ever been curious about life on the Vineyard, or fantasized about settling in, Blais offers a diverting portrait . . . Blais has stitched together [the memoir] from the writings and stories of others, as well as her own wistful, often wry observations . . . Throughout, Blais exhibits a veteran reporter's instinct for even-handedness.Boston Globe A bittersweet ode to a Martha's Vineyard home . . . The chapter on formidable Vineyard doyenne and Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham is the most charming in the book, positively luminous with nostalgic affection. And the broader canvas of Vineyard lifethe shops, the storms, the wry local humoris painted with exactly the kind of skill and evocation readers would expect from the author of the bestselling In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle.Christian Science Monitor Blais writes with eye, mind, and heart in equal measure. I laughed aloud, teared up at least once a chapter, and sighed with recognition throughout. Coming to the end was as bittersweet as Labor Day.George Howe Colt, author of The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home Madeleine Blais knows the secret of a superb memoir: a wry sense of humor and an honest sense of gratitude leaven the inevitable pain of To the New Owners. Anyone who has lived in a house and had to leave it will laugh and be moved by this brilliantly written book.Anita Shreve, author of The Stars Are Fire Praise for In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle: Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Beautifully written . . . a celebration of girls and athletics.USA Today Joyful . . . The reader gets a real sense of these girls and their dreams.New York Times Book Review Tender and upbeat . . . Wonderfully wry . . . A delight to read.Philadelphia Inquirer Flows like a novel . . . These basketball players show us what women can do when they work together as a team.Atlanta Constitution Engrossing . . . Better than the best pep talk, this book will kindle your pride in your own unique, feminine strength.New Woman

Préface
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• National review coverage
• Targeted outreach to sports (tennis) media

Auteur

MADELEINE BLAIS was a reporter for the Miami Herald for years and won a Pulitzer Prize before joining the faculty of the Department of Journalism at the University of Massachusetts. She is the author of To the New Owners, In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle, Uphill Walkers, and The Heart Is an Instrument, a collection of her journalism. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Texte du rabat

From the Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Madeleine Blais, the dramatic and untold story of legendary tennis star and international celebrity, Alice Marble

Résumé

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Madeleine Blais, the dramatic and colorful story of legendary tennis star and international celebrity, Alice Marble

In August 1939, Alice Marble graced the cover of Life magazine, photographed by the famed Alfred Eisenstaedt. She was a glamorous worldwide celebrity, having that year won singles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles tennis titles at both Wimbledon and the US Open, then an unprecedented feat. Yet today one of America’s greatest female athletes and most charismatic characters is largely forgotten. Queen of the Court places her back on center stage.

Born in 1913, Marble grew up in San Francisco; her favorite sport, baseball. Given a tennis racket at age 13, she took to the sport immediately, rising to the top with a powerful, aggressive serve-and-volley style unseen in women’s tennis. A champion at the height of her fame in the late 1930s, she also designed a clothing line in the off-season and sang as a performer in the Sert Room of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York to rave reviews. World War II derailed her amateur tennis career, but her life off the court was, if anything, even more eventful. She wrote a series of short books about famous women. She turned professional and joined a pro tour during the War, entertaining and inspiring soldiers and civilians alike. Ever glamorous and connected, she had a part in the 1952 Tracy and Hepburn movie Pat and Mike, and she played tennis with the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, and her great friends, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. However, perhaps her greatest legacy lies in her successful efforts, working largely alone, to persuade the all-white US Lawn Tennis Association to change its policy and allow African American star Althea Gibson to compete for the US championship in 1950, thereby breaking tennis’s color barrier.

In two memoirs, Marble also showed herself to be an at-times unreliable narrator of her own life, which Madeleine Blais navigates skillfully, especially Marble’s dramatic claims of having been a spy during World War II. In Queen of the Court, the author of the bestselling In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle recaptures a glittering life story.