Smokin' Joe

The Life of Joe Frazier

By: Mark Kram

Narrated by: James Fouhey

A gripping, all-access biography of Joe Frazier, whose rivalry with Muhammad Ali riveted boxing fans and whose legacy as a figure in American sports and society endures.

History will remember the rivalry of Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali as one for the ages, a trilogy of extraordinary fights that transcended the world of sports and crossed into a sociocultural drama that divided the country.

Joe Frazier was a much more complex figure than just his rivalry with Ali would suggest. In this riveting and nuanced portrayal, acclaimed sportswriter Mark Kram, Jr., unlinks Frazier from Ali and for the first time gives a full-bodied accounting of Frazier’s life, a journey that began as the youngest of 13 children packed in a small farm house, encountering the bigotry and oppression of the Jim Crow South, and continued with his voyage north at age 15 to develop as a fighter in Philadelphia.

Tracing Frazier’s life through his momentous bouts with the likes of Ali and George Foreman and the developing perception of him as the anti-Ali in the eyes of blue-collar America, Kram follows the boxer through his retirement in 1981, exploring his relationship with his son, the would-be heavyweight Marvis, and his fragmented home life as well as the uneasy place that Ali continued to occupy in his thoughts.

A propulsive and richly textured narrative that is also a powerful story about race and class in America, Smokin' Joe is unparalleled in its scope, depth, and access and promises to be the definitive biography of a towering American figure whose life was galvanized by conflict and whose mark has proven lasting.

©2019 Mark Kram (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers

Great Book

Mark Kram, Jr has written an excellent, and very honest book, about Joe Frazier. That Kram Jr holds Smokin Joe in very high regard is obvious, but he also talks about Frazier’s long-running affair with Denise Menz, which the rest of the media covered up for half a decade. Also, as a black man, I’ve always been offended by the many (white) authors who’ve always said that Muhammad Ali called Frazier an Uncle Tom for no reason, and that black America wrongly turned it’s back on Frazier just because of what Ali said. Kram, Jr, is the first author to talk about some of the things that Frazier himself did to turn off the black community, including his support of Frank Rizzo, the controversial Mayor of Philadelphia. (Kram Jr does not really go into it, but Frazier’s support of Richard Nixon was another thing that angered black people.) Also, Kram Jr talks about how the Philadelphia Daily News wrote an article praising Frazier for being a “one-woman man”, even though he had children by several different woman while he was married to Florence, and even while he had the continuing affair with Menz. So not only do we see an honest portrayal of Joe, but we get to see how dishonest the rest of the media has been, because of their desire to hate on Ali while glorifying Frazier, who was, as Kram Jr points out, “conciliatory” toward white America.
Not that Ali was without blame, as the whole business of calling Joe “the gorilla” was completely wrong. When, as a TV reporter, I last interviewed Joe , he still held a lot of bitterness toward Ali, (I believe that was around 2007), but it was great to hear Kram Jr’s inside story on a moment of reconciliation that he reveals at the very end of the book.
As for the audio elements, reader James Fouhey does great narration and voices.
My only problem is the production values, as you can hear where they dropped in corrected reads, which have a different sound to them.
Otherwise, one of the best books I’ve listened to in a long time.

Great to learn about Smokin' Joe even with flaws

It was terrific even with occasional flaws, such as the parts featuring white authority figures and with a slightly patronizing tone about Frazier. It gets much better in the middle and end, in the thick of Joe's prime and toward the end of his life, where there's little time for exploring racial politics and more to enjoy the story of a great champion.

A Great Bio!

What a great bio on Joe Frazier. In my mind there is no greater feat in sports than maximizing potential to the nth degree. Joe Frazier did this. A polar opposite to Ali who in my opinion was way overrated as a cultural icon who was a loud mouth braggart, poor loser, and worse winner. Frazier worked hard, never backed up, and conducted himself with dignity despite Ali’s cruel and racist attacks.