Dempsey:

Jack Dempsey fought several of the biggest, most controversial fights in boxing history, but you'd never know it by reading this book. His autobiography is as understated and plainspoken, as the Roger Kahn biography is elaborate and flowery. This is particularly the case where Dempsey describes his fights; he has hardly anything to say about ring strategy, or his opponents style. He just states the events leading up to the fight, then gives an account of how the fight went (I don't think he ever spent more than 3 paragraphs on that part). By comparison, I think that Kahn spent at least 30 pages, or so, on just the Willard fight. That's by no means to say that Dempsey's book isn't entertaining, or worth reading -just a remark on the book's style. I don't think anyone would disagree, factually, with what's written in this book, but, of course, it's difficult to know how judicious he was about what he put in. As regards what he did choose to write, he doesn't whine or make excuses for any of the disasters that happened in, or out of the ring ,and there's only one person who I can recall him having anything bad to say about. To read the book, Dempsey comes off as tough, more or less affable roughneck, but also one who's willing to have a laugh at himself. There's a chapter he spends, basically making fun of the movies and plays he did and his acting ability, which is actually pretty funny. That sort of self depreciating humour is spread throughout the book. Jack Dempsey was someone who'd worked as a coalminer, rancher, lumberjack, starving hobo prize fighter, and had ridden the rods(the narrow beams underneath a Pullman) back and forth across the country - and once with broken ribs- several times, all before he was 20. Given all that, you'd maybe not expect a wordy book that's overflowing with the author's feelings.Anyhow, for better or worse, (I tend to lean torward the latter) we won't be seeing his kind again, I don't think, and it's a very different type of American he's been replaced with.