Confessions of a Hero-WorshiperAs a boy, Stephen J. Dubner's hero was Franco Harris, the famed and mysterious running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers. When Dubner's father died, he became obsessed—he dreamed of his hero every night; he signed his school papers "Franco Dubner." Though they never met, it was Franco Harris who shepherded Dubner through a fatherless boyhood. Years later, Dubner journeys to meet his hero, certain that Harris will embrace him. And he is . . . well, wrong. Told with the grit of a journalist and the grace of a memoirist, Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper is a breathtaking, heartbreaking, and often humorous story of astonishing developments. It is also a sparkling meditation on the nature of hero worship—which, like religion and love, tells us as much about ourselves as about the object of our desire. |
Contents
3 | |
33 | |
The Stealth Messiah | 44 |
A Mother Is Not a Man | 52 |
A BIRGer Binge | 62 |
Book Two A HERO IN the Flesh | 79 |
Reunited | 81 |
The Urge to Merge | 101 |
Give Everyone a Smile | 138 |
Vida Blue | 158 |
A Brief History of Hero Worship | 167 |
Yanked from the Pedestal | 213 |
A Mother Is a Mother Is a Mother | 225 |
Something Like Love | 235 |
Acknowledgments | 251 |
Death Pro and Con | 120 |