Levels of the Game

Written by John McPhee

Narrated by Grover Gardner

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781705075111

John McPhee

John McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and was educated at Princeton University and Cambridge University. His writing career began at Time magazine and led to his long association with The 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 over 30 books, including Oranges (1967), Coming into the Country (1977), The Control of Nature (1989), The Founding Fish (2002), Uncommon Carriers (2007), and Silk Parachute (2011). Encounters with the Archdruid (1972) and The 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 1999, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Annals of the Former World. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Reviews for Levels of the Game

[Michael Steger · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a wonderful reading of an incredible and moving book. The transitions and juxtaposition are sometimes astonishing; everyone interested in the craft of writing nonfiction (or the craft of writing, period) should read this book.

[jpsnow · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In probably less time than the match took, you can relive the Men's Semi-final of the 1968 US Open. Interspersed with the play-by-play account is the backstory of Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. They grew up in very different environments but with a similar love of the game. Ashe's biography was most interesting to me. He was cerebral and curious, and yet knew how to keep himself focused when it mattered most. McPhee's writing is masterful, such that this book seems to put a lifetime into a short story.

[nmele_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This early John McPhee book works on many levels, as an account of a match between two young tennis stars, Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner; as profiles of each man at the start of their careers; as an examination of race and sport in America at the end of the 1960s. I wish there were less tennis jargon in the accounts of the match between Ashe and Graebner but that's a quibble. I was surprised by how meaningful this book still is.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In 1968, the U.S. Open Championship was first opened to amateur players. They weren't expected to do very well against the players on the pro tour, but both Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner made it to the semifinals. This is the story of that game. McPhee starts right off with the first serve, moving cinematically for a close shot of several points, then backing out to focus on the perspective of someone in the player's box or watching the match on television, or maybe taking a panoramic shot of the background of one of the players and how they started playing tennis, and moving in again for a closeup of a game or two.The book, published in 1969, is a little dated in the description of the "modern" game of tennis, and by comments made by some of the players, like "he plays like that because he's white" or "because he's black", or he has a "Latin temperament." McPhee was definitely at his best describing moments in the match: a tense point, a solid ace, and the reaction of players and fans. A worthwhile read that left a smile on my face in the end.