The art of the biographer requires a jeweler’s eye, and a birder’s ear; the tenacity of a cold-case detective, and the curiosity of the great explorers. Also, compassion for the subjects upon whom he sets his indefatigable sights. Athletes, coaches, presidents, fathers, David Maraniss does them all justice. None of his subjects deserves that more than Jim Thorpe, the great Olympic champion, who was anointed America’s greatest athlete by a country that denied him, and his indigenous people, citizenship. In “Path Lit by Lightning” Maraniss rescues him from myth and prejudice, restoring something far more consequential than the Olympic medals stolen from him by small men — his humanity. This is another masterpiece from the master.

Path Lit By Lightning is a flat-out masterpiece. The story of Jim Thorpe, one of America’s greatest and most misunderstood heroes, is told in riveting detail by David Maraniss, one of our greatest biographers. The result is a portrait as powerful, dazzling, and nuanced as Thorpe himself.

Path Lit by Lightning is a masterful look at this country’s first super-athlete, unflinching from what conquest did to his people, from the rousing and bittersweet journey of fame and identity, nor from an American century often far less heroic than the book’s protagonist. It’s simply brilliant.

Before Shohei Ohtani, before Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson, Jim Thorpe was the world’s best athlete, and David Maraniss tells Thorpe’s extraordinary, tragic story with all of the power and detail that it deserves.

Path Lit by Lightning is a captivating book by a master storyteller. David Maraniss provides new insights into Jim Thorpe, a man who was not only ‘the world’s greatest athlete,’ but a cultural icon complicated by the dynamics of race and celebrity.