Advance Praise for American Kings:
“American Kings is an instant classic — not just a great sports book but a great cultural history, revealing from every angle what it means to live in a country where “quarterback” is the coolest job title one can possess. Wickersham understands that it’s the action and the athletes we crave, and lets the deeper meaning speak for itself. His ability to scan the field and make smart, crisp connections earns him standing with Plimpton and Halberstam among the finest sports chroniclers.”
— Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize winning author of King: A Life, and Ali: A Life
“Seth has written a masterpiece. American Kings is a unicorn of a book. There is the usual incredible reporting on the deep inner workings of the NFL that you’ve come to expect from Seth. There is the deep and surprising levels of access to everyone from Y.A. Tittle to Caleb Williams, from John Elway to Arch Manning. It just vibrates with the literary universal; the book becomes, by the end, a parable about American ambition, which feels like the exact window we need right now into our national psyche. This will go down as one of the greatest sports books ever, and one of the best books of the year period.”
—Wright Thompson, New York Times bestselling author of Pappyland, The Barn, and The Cost of These Dreams
“Catnip for sports fans”
—Garden & Gun
“Seth Wickersham’s new work is subtitled A Biography of the Quarterback, and, yessir, it’s not about a single quarterback, it’s about all of them. It’s about anybody who has ever played, aspired to play, or been obsessed with the quarterback position. It’s about anybody who ever wanted to be king. … Wickersham is now also in a class of his own, having learned to master the words and sentences and thoughts he earlier wrangled like unbranded cattle. …. Like a spiral into the future, we have this wonderful book. When it comes out, read it, folks. I urge you. It’s not just about football. It’s about a kingdom of its own.”
— Rick Telander, National Sports Media Association Hall of Famer
Praise for Wickersham’s It’s Better to Be Feared, the National Sports Media Association’s Book of the Year:
“Seth Wickersham has managed to do the impossible: he has pulled off the definitive document of the Belichick/Brady dynasty.”
―Bill Simmons, The Ringer
“On my Mount Rushmore of sports books. The writing is fantastic, the reporting better.”
―Peter King, NBC Sports
“[A]n honest, sprawling, meticulously reported, and beautifully written portrayal of perhaps the greatest and probably the most unlikely dynasty in modern professional sports . . . .”
― Chad Finn, Boston Globe
“Wickersham’s fly-on-the-wall accounts are fascinating . . . Exemplary sports journalism that examines the front office and dueling egos as much as the gridiron.”
― Kirkus Reviews, starred review
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