When the Garden Was Eden: Clyde, the Captain, Dollar Bill, and the Glory Days of the New York Knicks

Description

In the tradition of The Boys of Summer and The Bronx Is Burning, New York Times sports columnist Harvey Araton delivers a fascinating look at the 1970s New York Knicks-part autobiography, part sports history, part epic, set against the tumultuous era when Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, and Bill Bradley reigned supreme in the world of basketball. Perfect for readers of Jeff Pearlman's The Bad Guys Won!, Peter Richmond's Badasses, and Pat Williams's Coach Wooden, Araton's revealing story of the Knicks' heyday is far more than a review of one of basketball's greatest teams' inspiring story-it is, at heart, a stirring recreation of a time and place when the NBA championships defined the national dream.

Harvey Araton has been a sports columnist for the New York Times since 1991. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife and two hoops-loving sons.

"Brilliant . . . smartly written, featuring tons of interviews with the Knicks of the Phil Jackson-Clyde-Reed era." -- New York Magazine "Harvey Araton, one of our most cherished basketball writers, has evocatively rendered the team that New York never stops pining for--the Old Knicks. More than a nostalgic chronicle . . . it's a portrait of a group of proud, idiosyncratic men and the city that needed them." -- Jonathan Mahler, author of Ladies and Gentleman, the Bronx is Burning "I wasn't there when Clyde and Willis and Dollar Bill were lighting up the Garden, let alone barnstorming Philadelphia church basements, but after reading When the Garden Was Eden I now feel like I was courtside with Woody and Dancing Harry." -- Will Leitch, founding editor of Deadspin "Harvey Araton, who writes the way Earl the Pearl played, has made the Old Knicks new again. I learned so much and I was there." -- Robert Lipsyte, author of An Accidental Sportswriter "Beautifully titled, wonderfully written . . . When the Garden Was Eden is a book about the assembly, success and failures of the Red Holzman-coached early '70s Knicks. But with the then-ongoing Vietnam War and general social unrest serving as the backdrop, it's actually about so much more than that." -- SLAM magazine "The coming NBA season may not happen due to labor strife. This book will help fans weather the storm by celebrating basketball at its very best: five players working as one, sharing the glory and achieving the ultimate success." -- Booklist (starred review) "Araton is the perfect writer for the job. . . . [ When the Garden was Eden] a must for basketball fans and a super-must for New York sports nuts." -- Kirkus Reviews