Max, by Dave Thorpe
Are you interested in…
• The tumultuous ‘thirties’ as they unfolded on both sides of the pond?
• The real stories about Max Schmeling, Joe Louis and Young Stribling?
• Off beat humor that parallels that of Max’s?
• A story that supercedes Cinderella man in every respect?
• A love story that blossoms under the guns of the most murderous war
ever fought?
• The stripping of propaganda that made Max a Nazi show horse and Louis
the Great Black Hope?
Max is highly intelligent and a very fine athlete. Young Stribling is as good
an athlete but maybe not as lucky or bright. They lead parallel lives in
Hamburg and Macon, Georgia. They become great friends finally meeting
for the world’s championship as both fend off the Ku Klux Klan and the
Nazis respectively.
Hitler draws Max into his inner sanctum as Max surreptitiously helps Jews
emigrate. Hitler and FDR bring their respective countries up from the depths of the Great Depression
culminating in the great 1936 Berlin Olympics where the USA and Germany count medals as adversaries.
Germany wins this skirmish. But it’s a mere and minor prelude to the greatest contest ever fought, WW2.
Hitler then makes a miscalculation and invades Poland. Max sees the writing on the wall but refuses to
emigrate.
Max is a novelized biography that captures the true characters of the protagonists in a manner that former
straight biographies could not.
This thought provoking work strips the propaganda from the facts and the embellishments from the hero. In
parts it is raw and graphic as befits those times.
A few of my recently
published short stories.
