Reviews
"One the year's best biographies." - Washington Post
"Mr. Brady's biography is well-written, studiously researched and filled with fascinating details. It imparts the love of chess and affection for 'Bobby' that the author clearly feels...Boris Spassky, after the losing the world championship title to Fischer, said: 'I think I understand him.' Perhaps one day the rest of us will too. Until then, we have Endgame to fill the void." - Wall Street Journal
"The freakishly talented, freakishly flawed Fischer played the game as if it were a blood sport...In ENDGAME Frank Brady tells the story of Fischer's life with a dramatic flair and a sense of judiciousness." - The Boston Globe
"Brady's book is an impressive balancing act and a great accomplishment...What results is a chance for the reader to weigh up the evidence and come to his own conclusions -- or skip judgments completely and simply enjoy reading a rise-and-fall story that has more than a few affinities with Greek tragedy." - The New York Review of Books
"Presents Fischer's story with an almost Olympian evenhandedness that ends up making it far more absorbing than any sensationalized account." - Laura Miller, Salon.com
"Brady is in a unique position to write about Fischer...he had access to new materials, including files from the FBI and the K.G.B. (which identified Fischer as a threat to Soviet chess hegemony in the mid-1980s); the personal archives of Fischer's mother, Regina, and his mentor and coach Jack Collins; and even an autobiographical essay written by the teenage Fischer. The wealth of material allows Brady to describe many rich moments and details." - New York Times Book Review
"Brady seems unusually well qualified to capture Fischer's many facets and contradictions...ENDGAME is a rapt, intimate book, greatly helped by Brady's acquaintance with Fischer...he sees the person behind the bluster...he also makes use of unusually good source material...fascinating." - New York Times
"Even if you don't give a damn about chess, or Bobby Fischer, you'll find yourself engrossed ...has the arc of a Greek tragedy --with a grim touch of mad King Learat the end...ENDGAME is one of those books that makes you want your dinner guests to go the hell home so you can get back to it." - Dick Cavett
"Recommended not just for chess enthusiasts but for anyone interested in the compelling compelling life of a complex, enigmatic, American icon." - Library Journal
"Brady masters Endgame." - Vanity Fair
"Insightful...Brady is uniquely qualified to write this...The book should appeal to a broad audience, from hard-core chess fans to casual players to those who are simply interested in what is a compelling personal story." - Booklist
"Engrossing...The Mozart of the chessboard is inseparable from the monster of paranoid egotism in this fascinating biography...Brady gives us a tragic narrative of a life that became a chess game." - Publishers Weekly (Pick of the Week/Starred Review)
"The teenage prodigy, the eccentric champion, the irascible anti-Semite, the genius, the pathetic paranoid--these and other Bobby Fischers strut and fret their hour upon celebrity's stage....Informed, thorough, sympathetic and surpassingly sad." - Kirkus Reviews
"ENDGAME is rich in detail and insight. It is sympathetic and human, but not at all naive. I admire Brady's resolve, and I consider this book essential reading in the effort to understand Bobby Fischer and his place in our world." - David Shenk, author of THE GENIUS IN ALL OF US and THE IMMORTAL GAME
"The definitive portrait of the greatest--and most disturbed--chess genius of all time." - Paul Hoffman, author of THE MAN WHO LOVED ONLY NUMBERS and KING'S GAMBIT
"Bobby Fischer began life as a lonely prodigy and ended it as a hate-spewing enigma, and in between became America's greatest chess player, a man renowned both for his unmatched brilliance and social clumsiness. In ENDGAME, Frank Brady masterfully chronicles the full breadth of Fischer's life, producing a narrative driven by staggering detail and profound insight into the psyche of a troubled genius." - Wayne Coffey
