Photo by Bill O'Connell

James S. Hirsch lives in the Boston area with his wife, Sheryl, and their children, Amanda and Garrett. A New York Times’s best-selling author, he is a former reporter for the Times and the Wall Street Journal. In addition to Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, Hirsch has written:

• Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter: He was an angry, flamboyant boxer in the 1960s when he was imprisoned for triple homicide. Carter maintained his innocence, inspired Bob Dylan, and became a cause celebre, but more than 20 years passed before he won his freedom and was formally vindicated, securing his reputation as a fighter who never surrendered.
• Riot and Remembrance: America’s Worst Race War and Its Legacy: In 1921, the race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma, destroyed that town’s black community and cast a shadow of fear and silence across the city for decades to come. Only at the turn of the century did Tulsa try to unearth its own history in search of justice and reconciliation.
• Two Souls Indivisible: The Friendship That Saved Two POWs in Vietnam: Combat pilots Porter Halyburton and Fred Cherry were shot down in North Vietnam several months apart and placed in the same prison cell because – their captors believed – their racial differences would tear them apart. Instead, Halyburton and Cherry saved each other’s lives in a tale of courage and heroism that made them legends in the American military.
• Cheating Destiny: Living with Diabetes: We live, increasingly, in a diabetic nation, without the resources or political will to tame this epidemic. In a book that combines history, medicine, and memoir – the author has type 1 diabetes and his son was diagnosed with type 1 at age three – Cheating Destiny describes the stunning breakthroughs, the heart-wrenching disappointments, and the unexpected resilience of those affected by this disease.