Fast Eddie - Hardcover

O'Connell, R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688166903 ISBN 13: 9780688166908

Publisher: William Morrow, 1999

Synopsis

A fictional portrayal of Eddie Rickenbacker, the pioneer, inventor, and hero who made headlines in the first half of this century, tells of his life in a multitude of voices, ranging from Alfred Sloan of General Motors to God. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

From the Author:

Why I wrote Fast Eddie
I first came across Eddie Rickenbacker when I was asked to write a magzine piece on him. In doing research I ran across his autobiography. The thing might have been ghosted by Horatio Alger, it was that simon pure and full of elevating lessons. But beneath the sanitized profile Rickenbacker chose to present to the world, I sensed there was an unexpergated Eddie who chased women, never drank anything under 80 proof, and beat the hell out of anybody who got in his way. He was the soul of insincerity -- Sergeant Bilko writ large, and that was funny. So I decided to write a novel about his life, a story that presented the Mythic Eddie and in the process got at why he once had been one of the three or four most admired men in America...a Hawaiian shirt of a man, pulled up so high by his own bootstraps that he confused axoxia with transcendental zoot. Even without my rhetorical flourishes, he lived a hell of a life. So far the critics seem to agree.

"An engagingly offbeat debut novel by an iconiclastic military historin." Publishers Weekly

"A delightful, pie-in-the-sky fictional oral biography...soaring tragicomic celebration of guts and glory which sums up the best and the worst of the American Century."--Kirkus Review

"...uproarious fictional biography...a peer of Thomas Berger's Little Big Man." Booklist

Synopsis:

A fictional portrayal of Eddie Rickenbacker, the pioneer, inventor, and hero who made headlines in the first half of the twentieth century, tells of his life in a multitude of voices, ranging from Alfred Sloan of General Motors to God.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0688166903
• ISBN 13: 9780688166908
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288