| | |  | | Home » Days of Grace | | | | | | | Description: | | The late tennis champion, activist, and AIDS victim remembers his experiences in the segregated South of his youth, his triumphs on the court, his family and religious life, and his struggle with his disease. Reprint. NYT. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Arthur Ashe | | Mass Market Paperback:
| 368 pages | | Publisher:
| Ballantine Books | | Publication Date:
| May 01, 1994 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0345386817 | | Package Length:
| 6.86 inches | | Package Width:
| 4.12 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.06 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.41 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 29 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 Class act on and off the courtJan 13, 2009
He was a great, history making tennis player. But far greater than that, Ashe was an extraordinary human being with keen insight into social issues who left a wonderful legacy for future generations to hopefully emulate. Great book.
Arthur AShe- Days of Glory reviewDec 06, 2008
The book is well written and very good. I enjoyed reading about a person who was well known and successful in the sports community but had much sadness in his life. He rose above that and lived a gracious life of giving. I have always admired Arthur Ashe and this book confirms my feelings.
Moving biography which highlights the complexity of living with HIV/AIDSJun 22, 2008
The biography was absolutely rivteting. It showed the enormous depth of a very special man - a side other than that of a great athlete but also one of a very special leader. His story of living with AIDS reveals all the complexities associated with the disease early in the epidemic, the stigma, the lack of confidentiality, and discrimination. Unfortunately, many of these themes have not gone away since the I read the book. A must read for the entire community as an important reminder of the still unending work that has to be done in this epidemic.
Pamela Payne Foster, author of "Is there a balm in Black America?"
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Graceful first half; droll second halfMar 05, 2008
I cannot remember the last time I started reading a book and enjoying it as much as I did, and then half way through the book I could barely continue on. Arthur Ashe did this to me in his autobiography. What happened really, I couldn't say, but I was all praise and looked forward to reading more and more, and then I couldn't wait to be done. Strange indeed.
The book started off great. Ashe gave us some insight into his world and into various aspects of his life that is not well known. He talked about his days as the captain of the American Davis Cup team, which was enlightening and revealing. He tells the intimate details of how, why and what happened when he discovered, as well as was discovered, to have aids. The opening chapter had me gripped to the seat as I was drawn in from the first few words. Amidst all this was Ashe's eloquence and ability to calmly and eloquently tell his story and impart who he was at the same time.
But then it became droll and boring. Ashe started talking about day to day stuff and imparting common conversations, thoughts and actions with too much importance. He would talk about going for a walk, or a talk he had with his daughter. He devoted several chapters to talking about various issues that didn't have anything to do with him but was more of a long winded explanation to help clarify a one sentence thought that he had. For example, he talked for almost a whole chapter about the likelihood of gay and lesbian athletes in various sports. Finally, as much as this seems touching, the letter at the end to his daughter sealed the deal and made this a mostly boring biography to read.
What we didn't see was his struggle with racism and segregation as he grew up in those troubled times of America. He talks a lot about segregation and racism as a retired tennis player, but he hardly goes into any detail about what ordeals he had to go through. This was the stuff that he could have gone into detail about and not only made his writing more interesting but helped raise awareness to what was and to hopefully will no longer be. Additionally, he didn't go into any detail about his own tennis career as a professional.
I wanted to see Ashe as a tennis player as well as his ordeals with the many surgeries he had that resulted in him contracting AIDS. But we don't get that. Instead we oftentimes get paragraph after paragraph of his day to day routine with AIDS. What pills he took, what he considered taking and so on.
What made his biography interesting in the first place was his stance on the black race and how they perceived themselves after slavery, segregation and slavery. He was truly a man beyond his time not only for black relations but for mankind's relationship with one another. For the first half of the book I would most certainly recommend to anyone as this is a very enlightening read. But the second half killed it and made it nothing more than average. Where was the biography part of autoBIOGRAPHY? I didn't find it, but I was still impressed with who Ashe was nonetheless.
3 stars.
A Lasting Legacy of Grace and GreatnessFeb 16, 2008
That tennis great Arthur Ashe died a victim of AIDS on February 6, 1993, is an undeniable tragedy. The fact that while he lived, he did so with consummate integrity, intelligence, and grace, remains his enduring legacy. Written with literary biographer Arnold Rampersad (Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison) Arthur Ashe's DAYS OF GRACE provides readers with a powerful portrait of an exceptional individual entrenched in the issues and passions of his life and times. Aside from being one of the most dynamic athletes of his or any other generation, his legacy also marks him as one of our greatest humanitarians.
In this invitingly intimate and yet stoically objective memoir, Ashe grapples with the issues of sports, racism, and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) which he contracted while receiving a blood transfusion after his second heart bypass operation in 1983. DAYS OF GRACE reveals different sides to a man many described as "cold" while he lived. The view from within does not support this description. Some very warm snapshots are provided of Ashe as a man who never stopped being an obedient son, as a fervent patriot, lover of art, serious intellectual, mystical seeker, generous philanthropist, devoted husband, and loving father.
Ashe's tendency to gloss over such feats as writing a landmark three-volume history of black athletes, his historic 1970 win at the Australian Tennis Open and 1975 victory at Wimbledon; or his association with people like Nelson Mandela and Jesse Jackson, rings true to an exceptional character whose many parts added up to a truly noble and memorable sum. As tragically as he may have died, DAYS OF GRACE provides an amazing portrait of just how heroically he lived.
by Author-Poet Aberjhani
author of "The Bridge of Silver Wings"
and Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File Library of American History)
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