Name: Endgame
ISBN: 9780307463906

Frank Brady

The author of Bobby Fischer: Profile of a Prodigy traces the late chess champion's struggles with fame and mental illness, offering insight into the sources of his rebellion against his faith and other contradictory aspects about his character.

Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall -- from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness

Endgame

When Bobby Fischer died in January 2008, he left behind a confounding legacy. Everyone knew the basics of his life: he began as a brilliant youngster, then became the pride of American chess, then took a sharp turn, struggling with paranoia and mental illness. But nobody truly understood him. What motivated him from such a young age, and what was the source of his remarkable intellect? How could a man so ambivalent about money and fame be so driven to succeed? What drew this man of Jewish descent to fulminate against Jews, and how was it that a mind so famously disciplined could unravel so completely? From his meteoric rise, to an utterly dominant prime, to his eventual descent into madness, the book draws upon hundreds of newly discovered documents and recordings, and numerous firsthand interviews conducted with those who knew Fischer best, to paint, for the very first time, a complete picture of one of the most enigmatic icons. This is the definitive account of a fascinating man and an extraordinary life, one that at last reconciles Fischer's deeply contradictory legacy and answers the question: 'Who was Bobby Fischer?'

Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall - from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness

Tobias V. Langhoff

I read this book before I watched Pawn Sacrifice, the new biopic about Bobby Fischer. I already knew a lot about him, not only through chess studies, but also from the excellent documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World (which I absolutely recommend for anyone who read this book or watched the biopic).

This biography is a good summary of Fischer’s life, from his childhood to his later years. It’s not much more than that, though. It contains an impressive amount of hitherto unknown (or lesser known) details of his life, but it rarely goes deep enough in his psyche to even attempt to understand the multifaceted man who created so much beauty on the board but so much hate in his mind.

The book glosses over the sixties, though. I wish it fleshed out what Fischer was up to in that decade a bit more; the chapter reads kind of like an action movie montage.

Endgame Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall -- from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness

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