Across the literary pages | 24 January 2011

The New York Times’ Janet Maslin reviews Frank Brady’s review of Chess playing wild child Bobby Fischer.

‘It’s no exaggeration to call Bobby Fischer both one of the most admired and one of the most reviled figures in American history. The admiration is prompted by his precocious rise to the pinnacle of the chess-playing world and his galvanizing 1972 cold-war-era triumph over Boris Spassky, the Soviet champion. The vilification stems from the monstrousness he exhibited in later years. On Sept. 11, 2001, he told a radio interviewer, “Yes, well, this is all wonderful news,” and, “It’s time to finish off the U.S. once and for all.” Thanks to the Internet, those comments will live forever. A man of such extremes is no easy subject for biographical study. For one thing, the many Fischer outrages and eccentricities could too easily be sensationalized. For another, Fischer’s story cannot be told without detailed attention to chess.