This biography is what the title says: True. Or at least with all the details, both positive and negative, of Jackie Robinson's life, one feels like he/she knows the man, not just the baseball player. The author obviously did a lot of research, based on the extensive bibliography. Also, some of the details given had to be from people who knew Robinson closely.

Most biographies of Robinson that I've read or seen focus on his career in baseball, particularly his historic integration of the Major League. But this goes much deeper into his background, and especially his life after baseball, including his involvement in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.

This book is a must read for any baseball fan, as well as those interested in the history of race relations in the 20th Century.

I was honestly pretty bored by this and I've been a huge fan of Jackie Robinson for decades. I felt like there was a lot of going back and forth and it felt like a lot of telling without describing. It could have been more entertaining to read.

As a baseball fan, I know woefully little about Jackie Robinson--really, just the basics--so was quite pleased to snag an ARC of this title. It's due to come out on April 12, a few days before the 75th anniversary of Robinson's debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers; great timing, and I recommend fans read this book as we wait for the lockout to end and baseball to begin.

This isn't a true biography; instead, Kennedy focuses on four years in Robinson's life: 1946 (his year in the minors in Montreal), 1949 (an MVP year for him), 1956 (his last year in the majors), and 1972 (the year of his death). He focuses 1949 and 1956 around specific games--the All-Star game and Game 6 of the World Series, respectively. His choices are interesting; he doesn't focus on Robinson breaking into the majors or the year the Dodgers won the World Series. It's a smart choice, because the stories of Jackie stoically enduring as he integrated the game and the stories of the Dodgers dynasty are ones that have been told already. Instead, we see his attitude and play progress through his career, and how his stoicism changes to include more pushing back and aggressiveness.

I appreciate how Kennedy really brings Robinson's playing style to life. I'll probably follow this up by watching the Ken Burns documentary to get video footage, but Kennedy manages to bring the reader into Ebbets Field. He sounds just so exciting to watch!

Kennedy takes a fairly high-level view of Robinson's life; we learn some about the day-to-day (his off-season job selling tvs!), but he focuses a lot on the game and a lot on his civil rights activities. Robinson in some ways is full of contradictions, which Kennedy doesn't shy away from--supportive of Martin Luther King, Jr., but also of the Vietnam War; proponent of civil rights but also a member of the Republican party...though seemingly not in 1968. He occasionally makes references to things like Robinson regretting, for instance, his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, but doesn't go into what the regret looked like. And there's a decent amount of saying what Jackie or his wife, Rachel, were thinking, without really saying how she knows that, one of my big pet peeves in nonfiction work.

Kennedy weaves in the point of view of various Dodger fans or people influenced by Jackie, which is sometimes powerful and sometimes seems to detract from the story. I also wish he did a bit less jumping around in time; understandably, given the framework of the book, but it was at times annoying. The epilogue also seemed to go on a bit; Kennedy truly wants to show the difference Robinson made in the world, which is laudable.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC (via NetGalley)! Publication date is April 12, 2022.