Having just read the recently released biography of the late great Sir Stirling Moss by Richard Williams I felt compelled to write a review of it for the blog. If like me you enjoy reading about the lives of the great and good of the sport you will probably want to read this as much as I did, as much to become a little closer to the man as much as to relive his career.
There are plenty of things to like about the book, indeed it was a very enjoyable read and one that I almost couldn’t stop reading, so on that score the author has done a very good job. However one thing that I would say to its detriment, and others here may feel differently, is that it doesn’t go into as much detail as it could. There are many parts of the story that I would have liked to have heard more about. The exciting times in which Sir Stirling lived and competed are definitely brought to life and the character of the man is certainly evident but at times it does feel a bit like a whistle stop tour of his life as oppose to an in depth look him.
I should balance this out by suggesting that it was maybe not intended to be an exhaustive biography and Williams maybe wanted instead to produce a more streamlined book to allow people to more easily re live an extraordinary life. If this is the case then he has accomplished this very well. The book is an easy read and one that you can fall into very quickly and while maybe the detail that I personally would have liked more of isn’t there it contains many fabulous stories that are a joy to read. It certainly does justice to Moss the racer and Stirling the man.
I don’t want to reveal too much of what is written as I do not wish to rob people of the experience of reading it first hand themselves but what I will say is that I came away with a much better portrait of Moss than I had previously. We all know Moss is a true legend and Icon of the sport, and most of us will probably know the main parts of his career but what some of us may not be quite so familiar with is just how much of a celebrity he was in his heyday and the status that was given to him when he burst onto the scene as a teenager in the late forties and early fifties.
The post war period was a time of excitement and new found freedom with a hunger to live life to its fullest and Stirling Moss seemed to embody that spirit with his exploits on the racetrack. That comes through in the narrative and for those of us that were not around at that time you really do get an appreciation for the age.
Reading about the racing exploits is riveting but I think for me some of the more revealing sections were discussing the man himself. For example his feelings on the breakup of his first marriage and the relationship difficulties faced by drivers and their wives during those days of extreme danger and regular fatalities, and his thoughts of the dangers of his occupation. His thoughts on life without racing and how hard it would be to give up driving and what must have been an incredibly difficult decision to call time on his career once he had recovered from his 1962 Goodwood accident were also very illuminating.
All in all this is good book and definitely worth your time to read, don’t let my desire for more detail put you off. If you already know about Moss’s life you will have fun reading back over it and if you are not as well versed then will come way feeling a little bit closer to the legend than before.
My F1 talk 