Tosches, Nick – The Devil and Sonny Liston.

Description

Tosches, Nick ‘The Devil and Sonny Liston.’ 2000 1st ed. Little, Brown and Company, Boston New York London. 266-pages. Former owner stamp & signature on blank frontispiece, else VG/VG. The frontispiece of this one has the handwritten signature and book stamp of longtime South African boxng collector/historian J. Karel de Vries. Another VG in good mylar protected dust jacket for $15.

The Devil and Sonny Liston is a dark, gritty, and fiercely written biography of one of boxing’s most enigmatic and feared heavyweights. Written by acclaimed music journalist and biographer Nick Tosches, the book functions less like a traditional sports biography and more like an existential noir investigation into the underbelly of Mid-Century America. Published in April 2000 by Little, Brown and Company, this version represents the true hardcover first edition of the text.

Book Description:
Tosches uses his signature lyrical, hard-boiled prose style to deconstruct the myth and tragedy of Charles “Sonny” Liston.
• The Narrative: The biography strips away decades of rumor to track Liston from his brutal childhood in Arkansas and his time spent in the Missouri State Penitentiary, where he first learned to box. It spans his terrifying rise through the heavyweight ranks to his ultimate undoing.
• The Dark Undercurrents: A primary focus of the text is Liston’s absolute subjugation by organized crime. Tosches intricately details how Liston was effectively “owned” by mob figures like Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo, positioning his famous losses to Muhammad Ali not just as athletic defeats, but as inevitable tragedies dictated by the criminal underworld.
• The Atmosphere: Rather than celebrating the glory of the ring, the book operates as a bleak commentary on the American Dream, race, corruption, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding Liston’s lonely death in Las Vegas.

First Edition Specifications:
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (Boston)
• Publication Date: 2000
• Binding: Hardcover with black cloth boards and silver stamping on the spine
• Dust Jacket: Styled in cream and white, featuring a prominent black-and-white photograph of a brooding Sonny Liston on the front.
• Flap Price: Features a non-clipped original retail price of $24.95 on the front inside flap.
• Page Count: 266 pages (plus a section of black-and-white photographic illustrations).
• ISBN-10: 0316897752 / ISBN-13: 9780316897754.