• Title: Sprinting Through No Man’s Land
• Author: Adin Dobkin
• Genre/Subject: Sports history
• Publisher: Kindle
• Publication Date: 2021
• Start date: 8/6/2021
• Finish date: 8/8/2021

Review:

A big fat DNF for this mangled narrative.

Research means research from primary sources, not just reading old newspapers and conjecturing what you think the characters would have been like.

Overly dramatic, dime novel level descriptions are blended with dry as a dusty road narrative.

Action jumps from years prior to the race to the race narrative with no transition or apparent reason.

Random digressions to unrelated topics like the chapter on Black American soldiers in 1918, or a woman who fought for suffrage. Neither were into bicycle racing. Get your work merit badge fo sho.

No map. For fuck’s sake, no map of the route?

No. I’ll stop here.