Mr. America: A biographical novel

By Nicolas CHEMLA

"So beautiful it turns biography into art." David Chapman, author of Sandow The Magnificent. This is the story of Mike Mentzer--a young man from Ephrata, PA, blessed with a striking physique and a superior mind-- a philosopher and entrepreneur, and a rationalist. In the late 70s, he was hailed as the next big thing in the booming world of Bodybuilding, a sort of Renaissance man who could have taken the discipline to new, more respectable heights. He was set to win the 1980 Mr. Olympia contest, the biggest in the sport's history, where he wanted to embody the promise of a new, better manhood, perfected by science and reason - but he was confronted with powers bigger than his. A certain Arnold Schwarzenegger, hot with his plans to conquer the world and hindered by Mike's rising aura, had sworn to destroy him. He came back from retirement that day and reclaimed his crown, in a contest that people are still debating today as blatantly rigged. Mike never competed again. Arnold went on to power, fame and fortune, while Mike's life spiraled out of control to a tragic death at the age of 49. This work of narrative-non-fiction - informed by years of research, thousands of pages of archives and hours of interviews - reads like a page turner. bringing to life 50 years of American history and bristling with larger-than-life characters, it succeeds in turning its extremely well researched story into an epic battle of mythological proportions between two very different but equally fascinating heroes, a collision of two worldviews that speaks a lot to today's issues: the ever-changing contours of masculinity, the troubles with gender stereotypes, the cult of the body, the science of fitness, mental and physical health, the definition of greatness, but, more importantly, the deconstruction of truth and the blurred line between fact and fiction, and what it means to be an American. A book like no other, Mister America was first published in French in 2019 to great acclaim, from both "fitness addicts" and "book fans," even those who had never set foot in a gym, some of them comparing it to Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. "A magnificent novel" (L'Équipe Magazine, France's leading sports mag) "The Great American Novel, but written by a French guy" (L'Opinion Internationale) "A real literary tour de force... Nicolas Chemla shows some real literary muscle here". (L'Express Magazine) "I never thought I'd read 600 pages about bodybuilding... As chiseled and bewitching as a black diamond" (Ernest Mag) MISTER AMERICA was Nicolas Chemla's first novel, published in 2019. His two subsequent novels (Murnau des Ténèbres, Editions Pocket) et L'Abîme (Cherche Midi Editeur) have both been selected for major National Book Awards (finalist for Prix Renaudot in 2021 and Prix des Deux Magots in 2023)

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0DFK22JCH
• ISBN13: 9798337510002
• Release Date: August 2024
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 709 Pages
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.6" x 6.0"