Levels of the Game [Paperback]

This account of a tennis match played by Arthur Ashe against Clark Graebner at Forest Hills in 1968 begins with the ball rising into the air for the initial serve and ends with the final point. McPhee provides a brilliant, stroke-by-stroke description while examining the backgrounds and attitudes which have molded the players' games.

This may be the high point of American sports journalism. Robert Lipsyte, The New York Times

McPhee has produced what is probably the best tennis book ever written. On the surface it is a joint profile of . . . Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner, but underneath it is considerably more--namely, a highly original way of looking at human behavoir . . . He proves his point with consummate skill and journalistic artistry. You are the way you play, he is saying. The court is life. Donald Jackson, Life

John McPhee's Levels of the Game . . . alternates between action on the court and interwoven profiles of the contestants. It is a remarkable performance--written with style, verve, insight and wit. James W. Singer, Chicago Sun-Times

John McPheewas born in Princeton, New Jersey, and was educated at Princeton University and Cambridge University. His writing career began atTimemagazine and led to his long association withThe New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1965. Also in 1965, he published his first book,A Sense of Where You Are, with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and in the years since, he has written nearly 30 books, includingOranges(1967),Coming into the Country(1977),The Control of Nature(1989),The Founding Fish(2002),Uncommon Carriers(2007), andSilk Parachute(2011).Encounters with the Archdruid(1972) andThe Curve of Binding Energy(1974) were nominated for National Book Awards in the category of science. McPhee received the Award in Literature from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 1977. In 19l”