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A New Biography Traces Tiger Woods’s Mythical Rise and Fall

By Dwight Garner

• March 19, 2018

There have been many biographies of Tiger Woods, and surely there will be many more. Some are friendly and shyly philosophical, like David Owen’s early “The Chosen One,” from 2001. Others are curmudgeonly and expert about golf, like Tom Callahan’s “His Father’s Son” (2010).

Amid these books, “Tiger Woods,” the new biography from Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, rides in as if on 18 wheels, for better and only occasionally worse. It’s a confident and substantial book that’s nearly as sleek as a Christopher Nolan movie. It makes a sweet sound, like a well-struck golf ball.

I found it exhilarating, depressing, tawdry and moving in almost equal measure. It’s a big American story that rolls across barbered lawns and then leaves you stranded in some all-night Sam’s Club of the soul. It reminded me of a line from Martin Amis’s new book of essays: “How drunk was Scott Fitzgerald when he said there were no second acts in American lives?”

The authors have hoovered up everything there is to be learned from previous writing about Woods, and then interviewed more than 250 people on their own. (They declined to interview Woods after he set draconian conditions.) They bring grainy new detail to almost every aspect of Woods’s life.

Better, they have a knack for scene-setting. They tuck us inside Woods’s private plane as the desert gives way to Las Vegas’s megaresorts to open a chapter about Woods’s exploits in that city, sometimes with Michael Jordan or Charles Barkley in tow. They refresh old stories by telling them from new angles.

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Table of Contents

• Rave and Reviews

About The Book

About the authors.

Jeff Benedict is the bestselling author of seventeen nonfiction books. He’s also a film and television producer. He is the coauthor of the #1 New York Times bestseller Tiger Woods. The book was the basis of the Emmy-nominated HBO documentary Tiger , which Benedict executive produced. The Dynasty, the definitive inside story of the New England Patriots under Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady, was a New York Times bestseller. The book is the basis of a forthcoming ten-part documentary series for Apple TV+, which Benedict is executive producing. His critically acclaimed book Poisoned is the basis of a Netflix documentary, which Benedict executive produced. His legal thriller Little Pink House was adapted into a motion picture starring Catherine Keener and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Benedict wrote Steve Young’s New York Times bestselling autobiography QB , which was the basis of an NFL Films documentary. Benedict’s upcoming biography of LeBron James will be published in 2023. 

Armen Keteyian is a CBS News correspondent based in New York and a longtime contributing correspondent to  60 Minutes.  An eleven-time Emmy Award winner, he is widely regarded as one of the finest investigative journalists in the country. A former writer-reporter at  Sports Illustrated , he is also the author or coauthor of ten previous books, including the New York Times bestsellers Raw Recruits and The System. Born and raised in Michigan, he now lives with his wife, Dede, in Fairfield, Connecticut, and San Clemente, California.

Product Details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (April 2, 2019)
• Length: 512 pages
• ISBN13: 9781501126444

Browse Related Books

• Sports & Recreation > Golf
• Biography & Autobiography > General
• Biography & Autobiography > Sports

Raves and Reviews

“Irresistible . . . Immensely readable . . . The authors have laid out a saga that is part myth, part Shakespeare, part Jackie Collins. . . . Benedict and Keteyian bring us along for the ride in a whirlwind of a biography that reads honest and true.” —Leigh Montville, The Wall Street Journal

“There is beauty and awe in this perfectly pitched biography . . . It has torque and velocity . . . It’s a confident and substantial book that’s nearly as sleek as a Christopher Nolan movie. It makes a sweet sound, like a well-struck golf ball. I found it exhilarating, depressing, tawdry and moving in almost equal measure. It’s a big American story. . . . The authors bring grainy new detail to almost every aspect of Woods’s life.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“Comprehensive, propulsive, packed with incident . . . and unsparing.” —Ian Crouch, The New Yorker

“An ambitious 360-degree portrait of golf’s most scrutinized figure . . . The book features fresh reporting on almost every significant element of Woods’ story. . . . It is a book brimming with revealing details.” —Sam Weinman, Golf Digest

“I have been trying to write about Tiger since he was a teenager. I thought he was unknowable. This book proves me wrong. Here, finally, is Tiger Woods.” —Michael Bamberger, senior writer for Sports Illustrated and author of Men in Green

“Chilling . . . Exhaustively researched . . . The authors present Woods as a man ‘both blessed and cursed’ by his otherworldly ability to separate his off-the-course problems from his performance on it. Tiger Woods is a fascinating analysis of the former, but for golf fans—and probably for Woods himself—his worth will still be judged by the latter. . . . What Benedict and Keteyian do better than in any biography I’ve read about Woods is detail the human costs of this machine-like focus.” —John Paul Newport, Bloomberg Businessweek

“When you read Tiger Woods , you realize these are not just high-level reporting gotchas. This is Tiger’s life laid bare.” —Bryan Curtis, The Ringer

“Painstaking . . . An exhaustive dive into understanding who Tiger really is . . . Benedict and Keteyian provide extensive details.” — Financial Times

“A searing biography of golf’s most blazing talent.” — GOLF magazine

“Juicy . . . A far-reaching portrait of Tiger on and off the golf course . . . Plenty of new revelations, and incredible additional detail and insight into Tiger’s professional and personal life.” — Golf Digest

“Meticulously reported, scrupulously fair, endlessly interesting, Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian’s Tiger Woods reveals the human being long-hidden behind the golf genius. The story of Tiger’s passage from driven prodigy, to lonely hero, to disgraced celebrity is compelling, and often poignant, from first page to last.” —Jeffrey Toobin, author of American Heiress and The Nine

“If King Lear had been about golf, or if the great Russian novelists had turned their lens toward modern expectations and fame, toward the most American of fathers and sons, the result would be this book. The rise and fall and return of Tiger Woods in these pages is both mythic and poignantly small and human.” —Wright Thompson, senior writer, ESPN The Magazine

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Tiger Woods Paperback – 2 April 2019

• Print length 512 pages
• Language English
• Publication date 2 April 2019
• Dimensions 13.97 x 2.54 x 21.27 cm
• ISBN-10 150112644X
• ISBN-13 978-1501126444
• See all details

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Product description

About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (2 April 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 512 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 150112644X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1501126444
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 2.54 x 21.27 cm
• 147 in Golf Biographies
• 152 in Mid Atlantic U.S. Biographies
• 639 in Golf (Books)

About the authors

Armen keteyian.

Armen Keteyian is considered one of the finest investigative journalists in the country. An 11-time Emmy Award winner, he is a network television correspondent for CBS News based in New York and longtime contributing correspondent to “60 Minutes.”

Keteyian has covered the plight of black quarterbacks in the NFL, the Penn State child abuse sex scandal, NFL concussion settlement and profiled acclaimed Alabama Crimson Tide head football coach Nick Saban for “60 Minutes.” For “60” he later broke the story of the state-sponsored doping system used by dozens of Russian athletes in the 2014 Winter Olympics.

From 2013 to March of 2017, Keteyian was the lead correspondent for “60 Minutes Sports.” From 2006-12, he was the Chief Investigative Correspondent for CBS News, winning multiple awards. Prior to that he was a special features reporter for CBS Sports, a correspondent for HBO’s “Real Sports,” and a correspondent for ABC News “World News Tonight.”

Keteyian has written or co-written 11 books including “The System,” an inside look at big-time college football. His latest book is a major biography of Tiger Woods with co-author Jeff Benedict. Keteyian earned a bachelor’s in journalism from San Diego State University, where he started as an infielder on the baseball team.

Jeff Benedict

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The juicy details behind the new book about Tiger Woods: A Q&A with the authors

Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, authors of the new book Tiger Woods , did a Q&A with Golf Digest by email exchange before the book’s publication March 27 by Simon & Schuster. (We’re releasing this Q&A in conjunction with an online book excerpt on Tiger’s dealings with Bill Clinton when Tiger invited the former president to be part of the grand opening of the Tiger Woods Learning Center in 2006.)

Guys, congratulations on the book. Plenty of new revelations, and incredible additional detail and insight into Tiger’s professional and personal life. To start, describe the cooperation of Team Tiger—rather, the lack of it—and how you worked around it by doing more than 400 interviews.

Understandably, Tiger chose not to talk with us for the book. However, he did authorize one of his doctors—Mark Lindsay, who served as his longtime chiropractor—to speak with us on the record. In addition to being interviewed, Lindsay provided us with a written explanation—technically, a legal declaration—that is the most comprehensive statement to date on whether Tiger used performance-enhancing drugs. At the same time, we analyzed the transcripts from over 300 Tiger Woods press conferences and read virtually everything Tiger has said in print and on television. We spent a year constructing a 120-page timeline of his life. And we did most of that before we interviewed more than 250 individuals from Tiger’s life. That was part of what we did to understand Tiger’s mind-set and incredibly eventful life.

There’s been a lot of anticipation about whether you would tackle the issue of PEDs in golf, and the treatments Tiger received from Dr. Anthony Galea as he rehabbed from one of his many surgeries almost a decade ago. Beyond what you’ve said above, what can you tell us about that in advance of the book’s publication date?

Not much. We’d like to keep what’s in the “Miracle Workers” chapter for the book.

Related: Read an excerpt from Tiger Woods on Tiger's round with Bill Clinton

You’ve reported and written a far-reaching portrait of Tiger on and off the golf course. If someone ran into you at a party today and asked, “What do you think of Tiger Woods?” how would you respond?

First, we might both answer that question differently. But we are in agreement that we think highly of him. His professional achievements are unparalleled. We see him in the same vein as Shakespeare. Someone no one had ever seen or will ever see again. What’s much less understood about him—and much more compelling—is his upbringing and his personal habits, which combine to make him one of the most complicated, misunderstood athletes of our time.

And how does that compare with some of the other high-profile people you’ve written about?

It’s difficult to compare Tiger to other high-profile athletes. Arguably, there hasn’t been another athlete in the past 50 years who has been more high-profile than Tiger. Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan are obviously right there. But they came along before the Internet, cellphones, social media and the TMZ mentality. Everything Tiger did—from the jaw-dropping heroics on the golf course to the personal problems outside the ropes—were amplified and magnified beyond anything that any athlete had previously experienced.

The NCAA famously demanded that Tiger, then at Stanford, pay back the cost of a $25 meal with Arnold Palmer. You report that before Tiger went to college, IMG had been paying his father, Earl, an estimated $50,000 a year as a talent scout on the junior-golf circuit, and that IMG ended that during Tiger’s time at Stanford to avoid compromising his NCAA and USGA eligibility. You also report that in January 1996, Tiger’s final year at Stanford, Earl Woods put together a budget of $27,170 for travel to events, and you quote John Merchant—a longtime attorney for the family later fired by Earl Woods—laying out how an individual offered to finance it: “I saw to it that my guy gave me the money,” Merchant says. “And I got it to Earl. And Tiger participated in the tournaments.” You add that no one other than Merchant was to know who had given money to Tiger. Not even Tiger. Describe how it worked.

John Merchant played a pivotal, albeit largely invisible role in Tiger’s teenage years through his transition to becoming a pro. One of Merchant’s most important functions was helping to finance Tiger’s amateur career. As a lawyer and a member of the USGA’s executive committee, he knew the restrictions and limitations on paying amateurs. So he helped organize clinics and speeches where Tiger and Earl would appear at private clubs, particularly in Merchant’s home state, Connecticut. There, Tiger would put on an exhibition and Earl would give a speech. With money provided by individual club members, Earl would receive a speaking fee. That money—and we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars—was used to finance Tiger’s travel expenses, tournament-entrance fees, etc.

You describe how Tiger, while at Stanford, sent a break-up letter to a bewildered hometown girlfriend, the first real love of his life, that ended, Sincerely, Tiger , and eight months later apologized in another letter, which concluded, Warmest regards, Tiger . Do you think he wrote either letter? How much of that do you think came from his parents?

The letters were written by Tiger. That’s clear from the handwriting. The real question is whether Tiger’s parents influenced the content of the letters. In the case of the break-up letter, Tiger’s ex-girlfriend believes strongly that the letter was the result of Tiger’s parents. The apology letter, which is much more heartfelt, seems like it was clearly and exclusively the result of Tiger’s thoughts. The second letter also had the benefit of being written after sufficient time had passed, allowing for more measured and thoughtful words, whereas the break-up letter was written in a moment of haste.

In the 1996 U.S. Amateur final, Tiger was 2 down with three holes to play and had a six-footer to win the 34th hole. (Tiger had moved his ball marker on the green to accommodate his opponent, Steve Scott, who had made a tough par putt.) You report that as Tiger prepared to putt for birdie to cut the lead to 1 up, Scott stopped him and asked if he’d replaced his mark to its previous spot. (“Woods immediately paused, stood up, and reset his ball to the correct spot.”) If Tiger had putted without doing so, he would have lost the hole and the match. Tiger made the birdie putt and went on to win the title, but you report that he didn’t thank Scott or acknowledge his action. What did Scott think of that, then and now?

It’s fair to say that Steve Scott was deeply disappointed at the time. So was his caddie, Kristi Hommel, who is now his wife. It was a pretty bruising loss for Scott, and the lack of acknowledgment from Tiger was hurtful. However, when Tiger complimented Steve for his sportsmanship on the 20th anniversary of the match, his words went a long way to mending the past.

You quote a former nightclub owner in Las Vegas who said, “When Tiger got famous, he got mean.” How so?

At that time, Tiger was spending time with Michael Jordan. The two of them had a reputation for coming across as entitled and for being stingy when it came to tipping.

And do you see a “new” Tiger today?

Without a doubt. But that’s also not all that surprising. Like anyone who reaches his 40s, Tiger has changed. His body is different. His perspective has changed. There are new priorities. Plus, in Tiger’s case, there is the fact that he has gone through some very difficult personal challenges. His long battle with pain has perhaps been the biggest factor in changing his outlook. Immobility has a way making a person more acutely aware of and appreciative for the simple things in life. Then consider that Tiger was the best in the world at one thing. To suddenly be unable to do that one thing is devastating. But to regain that ability is no doubt exhilarating and gratifying and, to a certain degree, humbling. Tiger’s greatest achievement to date may be the fact that he has crawled out of a deep, dark hole and climbed back into contention. He’s given everyone—golf fans and everyday people—a reason to root for him

You report that at one point, Tiger was one of about 100 people in the country who had a $1 million line of credit with the MGM Grand in Vegas, and that at blackjack he would “routinely play $20,000 a hand, often two or more hands at a time.” What kind of a gambler was he?

A very good one. Competitive, with a mind for numbers. A “sharp,” in Las Vegas parlance, meaning he won more than he lost. It wasn’t unusual for him to walk away with $500,000 in winnings. And he rarely if ever chased big losses. Gamblers are rarely described as “disciplined,” but that fits Tiger.

We can’t skip the sex scandal. You quote one individual with direct knowledge of the promiscuous atmosphere at Earl’s home after his separation from Tiger’s mother, Tida, describing it as a “f------ rodeo.” And after Tiger’s 1995 U.S. Amateur victory, you describe a scene of Earl hitting on a young woman in a convenience store and Tiger saying, “Pop, c’mon. You can do better than that.” How did Tiger’s knowledge of his father’s womanizing weigh on him through the years? Do you think it played a role in Tiger’s later scandal?

Scott Clarke

We won’t weigh in on all of the particulars. Suffice it to say that Earl had an enormous influence on many aspects of Tiger’s life, including his attitudes toward women. But it’s also important to keep in mind that Tiger and his father were very different in some important ways. Most notably, by age 21, Tiger was a multimillionaire whose name recognition was known throughout the world. Before he was old enough to buy a drink, he had more power and influence than most Fortune 500 CEOs and high-ranking politicians. These factors can’t be overlooked when looking for answers to the scandal that engulfed him in 2009.

Shortly after the Tiger scandal became public, you report that his teacher at the time, Hank Haney, ran into Charles Barkley and asked him if he’d had any idea that Tiger had been seeing so many women. “Hank,” you quote Barkley replying, “let me ask you a question. I spent 10 to 15 days a year with Tiger. You spent 200 days a year with Tiger. If you didn’t f------ know, how in the f--- am I going to know?” After your reporting for the book, how many people do you think really knew what was going on?

Very few. His mother and his wife were in the dark. Members of his inner circle were unaware. His high school friend Bryon Bell was helping arrange rendezvous with women. [Agent] Mark Steinberg was certainly aware of allegations involving Tiger and other women. But it’s likely that no one other than Tiger “really knew what was going on.”

Do you think Tiger is happy today? Do you think he’ll win another major?

We think this is the happiest Tiger has been in his life. He has a girlfriend. He spends quality time with his kids. But most of all, he’s finally living a life without constant, debilitating pain. In terms of whether he’ll win another major, we certainly hope so. And given what we’ve witnessed in the past few weeks, we think he has an excellent chance.

One word to describe Tiger?

It’s hard to sum up Tiger in one word. How about four? One of a kind.

Stuart Woods Books In Order

Publication order of stone barrington books.

Publication Order of Holly Barker Books

Publication Order of Ed Eagle Books

Publication Order of Herbie Fisher Books

Publication Order of Rick Barron Books

Publication Order of Teddy Fay Books

Publication Order of Will Lee Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Barrington Universe Books

About Stuart Woods:

Stuarts Woods was an American novelist. He was born in Georgia in 1938 and graduated from the University of Georgia in 1959. He then enrolled in the National Guard before moving to New York to start a career in Advertising.

He then moved to London and spent a further 3 years working in advertising before deciding that he wanted a change and he began writing his first novel. It is at this time that he decided to move to Ireland where he lived a solitary life-style, only leaving his home to make money writing adverts for a local television.

He passed in 2022.

Woods moved to Ireland in the 70s and this was where he fell in love with sailing. He spent many years competing in sailing competitions and learning how to be a better sailor. He finally bought his own boat when his Grandfather died and left him some money, so he could afford it. It was then that he took sailing more seriously and spent most of 1974 learning more about sailing.

Woods began writing about his experiences in his yacht races and he was published in 1977, with the book Blue Water, Green Skipper. It seemed like he had found an ideal career based on the thing he loved most, sailing.

Changing Plans

His second book was supposed to about another boat race that he was due to take part in, but the race was cancelled due to inclement weather, so he decided to drive around the UK and write a book about his adventures in county inns.

Woods then went on to write his first novel called Chiefs. He made the mistake of selling the book to publishers unfinished because he thought he would have gotten a lot more for it had he waited until the book was finished.

Norton were the company to publish the hard back, but he felt like the company let him down because they didn’t do much to promote the book. He then contacted Bentham Books, who published the paperback and it was much more successful.

Charlton Heston

In 1983, the book was made into a tv series staring Charlton Heston and Danny Glover. It was aired by CBS over three nights and it ended up being nominated for three Emmy Awards.

The popularity of the tv show meant that more people wanted to read the books and there was renewed interest the paperback version of the books and Woods won the Edgar Award for the Best First Novel.

Series Over Standalones

Woods is one of those authors who are more focused on the series of novels over the standalone. His most popular series is the Stone Barrington Novels. He has just released his 27th novel in the series and he has written 3 more novels, which are set to be released in 2014.

Who is Stone Barrington?

Stone Barrington is a counsel for a law firm. After he finished college, he joined the police and served for 14 years on the force. He left after disagreeing with his superiors and then got a job with the law firm. The novels tell the story of his exploits so far.

In the Stone Barrington novels, Woods is often congratulated for getting the law procedures correct when he has no background in law himself. It is noticed a lot and one fan asked how he gets it all right. He indicates that he is a massive fan of law procedurals such as LA Law and Law & Order, so gets all of his knowledge from there. He has made a few friends who are Lawyers, so if he gets anything wrong, they tell him.

Holly Barker

Holly Barker is a character in another series of books that he writes. She is an ex army officer, and navy-brat. She left the army because of a sex scandal and she has to learn how to live the civilian life. She begins her new life as the Chief of Police and she learns just how dangerous her new life is.

Even though Woods has written a number of series, which focus on the life of a single character, the characters from each of the novels do crossover into other series. For example, Stone Barrington appears in the second Holly Barker novel and he also appears in the second novel of the Rick Barron novels.

Rick Barron

The Rick Barron novels are only two books deep at the moment. Rick Barron was a police detective and he was demoted after a run in with a higher officer. He gets the job as security for Centurion Pictures but finds himself in the middle of a double murder case in the time period that is said to be the golden age of Hollywood cinema.

The first Rick Barron novel, The Prince of Beverly Hills, was meant to be a standalone novel but Woods ended up writing a sequel after he was bombarded with emails from fans asking him to write another. He has no plans to write another at this moment in time.

Further TV and Movies

After Chiefs was made into a TV series, one of his other books was adapted for TV as well. Grass Roots was made into a TV series in 1993. Since then, no other books have been made for TV.

Woods indicates that he would love it for his other books to be made into movies and if a director has read one of the books and wants to buy the rights, then he encourages the writer to get in touch with his agent.

Some other books have been bought to be made into TV, but nothing ever came of it. Chiefs is available on Netflix now and has a cult following, however Woods has no plans to make more novels based on the characters in the books.

Personal Life

In his personal life, Woods loves to fly, having his own planes and he still sails regularly on his own private yacht. He had married before but it ended in divorce and little is known about this marriage. He has stated that he preferred to live the life of a bachelor, but in 2013 he fell in love and married Jeanmarie Cooper. They have three homes, which they travel between, with their dog Fred.

61 Responses to “Stuart Woods”

I was saddened to hear that Mr Woods passed away a couple of years ago. He was a great storyteller. Whenever I got a new book, I’d get nothing done until I finished reading it! He provided me with countless hours of entertainment. I’m going to miss him! He’s irreplaceable. R.I.P. Mr Woods.

I am 74 and from Leeds Yorkshire England.I have just finished my first Stuart Woods book.Chiefs,it was given to me by my sister in law.who thought i might like it.Well she was right.The book has been the best boom i have read in years,and i devour books.I wish i had found Stuart’s work a long time ago.Chiefs is fantastic.I now look forward to many hours days months years of reading the books on Kindle or hardback.

I just found out about Mr. Woods passing. My Mother and I have enjoyed his books for years. I just told my wife the other day I was going to start over with his books from the beginning. I have all of his books about half in hardback the rest paperbacks. Some on my Kindle. I intend to buy the rest for my Kindle, that I don’t have. My Mother passed Dec 26 2023 without knowing he had passed. They will both be missed.

I started with a couple of the audio books many years ago. As I read books now, I still hear Tony Roberts voice the characters!! Now I enjoy going to used bookstores and library sales to fill in what I’m missing. Thanks Stuart, for many happy hours of reading.

Oh, I just heard of his passing. My heart is broken and now I won’t even loan any more of his books out. I just bought one today which I assume was and is his last. R>I>P and write for them in heaven 🙂 <3

I am sorry to have just learned of Mr. Woods passing. My sincere condolences to his Family. I have spent many pleasant hours reading & rereading all of his books. Mr. Wood’s books are a treasure.

Miss Mr. Woods books very very much. His character of Stone Barrington is brilliant. I wondered if he would have eventually had Barrington and Holly Barker marry. I am re-reading all of his books. RIP

I have loved Stuart Woods books from the time I found them. I am so sorry at his passing but memories of him and his stories will never go away!

I am truly sorry to hear of his passing. Natuarally my favorite book is “Dirty Works”, and I have introduced more than 20 new fans to Mr. Woods books because of his Herbie Fisher character and I having the same name, Rest in peace, you are still here in your work

I was saddened to just learn of Mr. Woods’ passing. I have read almost all of his books. I am currently reliving the life of Stone Barrington (my fav). I absolutely love Tony Roberts on the audiobooks. I would love to see the series continued

I just finished Near Miss and must say that I was very disappointed. There was a little plot and the dialogue were short one-liners. Battles cannot compare to Stuart Woods. I am glad I got it from the library and did not waste the money buying it. I have all Stone Barrington novels in my personal library

I miss him, and knowing he is “gone” makes me miss him even more as there are no more Stone Barrington books to look forward to. He was indeed one of a kind -I’ve read ALL his books and listened to many on audio. What a wonderful legacy he has left – and thank goodness WE CAN ALL REREAD his words!

Was deeply saddened to hear Mr. Woods passed away. I have thoroughly enjoyed slowly reading all the Stone Barrington novels in order and am just starting Foul Play. I enjoyed the all the characters, Stone’s lavish lifestyle and the cross over from his other series. Sincere condolences to his family.

Started with Palindrome on a recommendation from a friend. Then Chiefs and all the Will Lee series. Now onto Holly Barker. I love that he went UGA like me, incorporates familiarities of the South like Cumberland island, small town culture, aeronautics, sailing, firearms, and how he crosses over characters. The summary should have also included how Holly Barker shows up in the Will Lee series and how the Villains (not to spoil it) also show up in a couple series. Amazing how prolific Woods was with up to 3 or 4 books a year sometimes. Rest in Peace Mr Woods. And Go Dawgs!!

I just discovered today that Stuart Woods passed away last year. I felt as though he would be here for a lifetime, but just wishful thinking. I’m quite sadded about his passing. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading his books and hope to read all before I pass. Easy reading and quite enjoyable. Thank you Mr. Woods for all the reading enjoyment you have given your fans. Hugs

Stuart Woods books are great. With a bout of Covid and the pandemic I have read 32 of his books. Looking to reading all of his work.

I GOT TURNED ON TO STUART WOODS BY THE LIBRAIAN IN MY LOCAL LIBRARY. NEEDLESS TO SAY I’VE READ ABOUT 27 OF HIS BOOKS TO DATE THRU THE PANDEMIC. MY FAVORITE IS TEDDY FAY. I’M SORRY TO HEAR OF MR. WOODS PASING, HE HAS GIVEN ME COUNTLESS HOURS OF READING PLEASURE. RIP

I am going to miss Stone Barrington…

So sorry to hear of his passing. The Stone Barrington series was very entertaining and I wonder if it will be continued with his co-writer? Also, Tony Roberts characterizations are a joy to listen to.

Love Stuart Woods writing. I am proud to say that I own ALL of his books in hardback, many of them are first editions. My Grandson will have quite am extensive library when I pass on from this world

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Stuart Woods

Stuart woods biography.

Stuart Woods is the author of more than ninety novels, including the New York Times–bestselling Stone Barrington series. He was a native of Georgia and began his writing career in the advertising industry. Chiefs , his debut in 1981, won the Edgar Award. An avid sailor and pilot, Woods lived in New Mexico, Florida, and Maine. He died in July 2022 aged 84.

Stuart Woods's website This bio was last updated on 07/29/2022. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

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Russell Andrews is a pseudonym for Peter Gethers. Under the Andrews name, he has written five bestselling thrillers, Gideon , Icarus , Aphrodite , Midas and Hades . In real life, he is a screenwriter, novelist, publisher, and ... (more)

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Harriet Tubman at around the age of 65, Auburn, New York, circa 1885.

Photo by Seymour Squyer via National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

What Harriet Tubman did with rest of her life

Tiya Miles’ new biography looks at development of ‘eco-spiritual’ worldview, how it served her with Underground Railroad, later missions

Christy DeSmith

Harvard Staff Writer

Many Americans today have a singular view of Harriet Tubman, the 19th-century hero who rescued herself and at least 70 others from slavery before the outbreak of the Civil War.

“We’re really focused on segments of her life that match up with a cinematic adventure story,” said Tiya Miles , the Michael Garvey Professor of History. “But Tubman lived a long life, and she was involved with the Underground Railroad for only about a decade. What did she do with the rest of her years?”

Miles provides an answer in her new book, “Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People ,” with its focus on the “eco-spiritual” worldview that made Tubman’s heroism possible. The biography begins with Tubman’s early days as a tenacious child who endures slavery’s abuses while acquiring deep knowledge of the natural world. It also gets to the root of Tubman’s abiding faith in God, a source of solace and strength from early girlhood.

The book’s June 18 release marks the debut of Penguin Press’ Significations series , featuring top thinkers on major Black cultural figures, curated and edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. , the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor. Coming next month is a biography on Mary McLeod Bethune, the turn-of-the-20th-century educator and activist, authored by Brown University’s Noliwe Rooks .

We caught up with Miles, winner of the 2021 National Book Award for “All That She Carried,” to learn more about “Night Flyer.” The interview was edited for length and clarity.

Tiya Miles.

File photo by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

This book explores the development of Tubman’s worldview. Where did you get the idea for this approach?

Like many kids growing up in the U.S., I saw Harriet Tubman on posters in my elementary school classrooms and heard about her every year during Black History Month. When I became a scholar of slavery studies, I saw Tubman all across the literature. It wasn’t until I became conscious of environmental issues, and turned my attention toward environmental history, that I realized Tubman was an important figure for the ways she interacted with the natural world.

Around the time of Hurricane Katrina, when the exposure of African American people to environmental harms became much clearer, I realized I wanted to write about Tubman and the ways she navigated her environment toward the ends of freeing herself and many others from slavery.

I’m immediately struck by the similarities to your previous title , “ Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation” (2023).

“Wild Girls” was really inspired by my interest in Harriet Tubman. Thinking about Tubman and the outdoors for a book about the history of girls in the outdoors, writ large, led me back to seeing her as a child — and to seeing her experiences in entirely new light. I realized how much being in nature shaped her understanding of who she was and what she was capable of.

I then turned to other female figures in the 19th century and asked if the same applied to them. And it did! So with the help of Tubman, I really found my way to an interpretation about girls and the outdoors in the U.S.

Why did you return to Tubman so quickly for your very next book?

“Wild Girls” was part of a series called Norton Shorts , and I found there just wasn’t enough room for all I wanted to say. Working on “Night Flyer” allowed me to reopen the question of Harriet Tubman and nature — to revisit primary materials, to bring in a whole host of secondary materials, and to fit this exploration with the new series edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

What I really saw was that, yes, nature was prominent, but so was something else. And that was Tubman’s very full, very rich, very real spiritual and religious life.

Water, sky, land, and loblolly pine trees in the Maryland county where Tubman was born.

Photo by Perri Meldon, 2022

How did Tubman acquire her deep ecological knowledge?

From around the age of 4, Harriet Tubman — who at that time was known as Araminta Ross, or Minty — was leased out by her owners to other enslavers with farms near the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. She was often forced to do work that was terrible for a child, like collecting muskrats from traps. As an adolescent, she was leased out for outdoor manual labor, and then she got permission to hire herself out to work in the local timber industry.

Her education, as far as we can tell, was influenced by what she could see and hear and touch, but also by the fact that her father worked in the same woods. He was a foreman of a group of people, both free and enslaved, who were doing timbering work. Tubman probably learned from her father about the differences between tree species, how to identify stars in the night sky, and what would have been edible in those woods.

How did this knowledge serve her Underground Railroad mission?

It’s really hard for us now to understand how difficult and even impossible it was for enslaved people to escape captivity. As a result, the mass number of African Americans who were enslaved had to wait until the Civil War to obtain their freedom.

Many were living in isolated locations where roads were unmarked and unmapped. There were thick forests, wide waterways, and deep swamps, all of which were filled with wildlife that could be hazardous.

Those who did make the attempt had to cover great distances to get from southern states to the north. And they would do this knowing there were people on the lookout to identify them; there were hunters on their trail. That meant knowing how to sustain your own life and the lives of those making the journey with you. It meant being able to access water, food, and shelter. It meant knowing what path led through which woods, which waterways were nearby, which animals were dangerous.

“She spent the rest of her life taking people in, aiding them, and showing them the kind of love she always received from her family, but never received from enslavers as a child.”

When did Tubman’s religious education begin?

Harriet Tubman — little Minty Ross — was raised by parents who were themselves very religious. Although we don’t have a great deal of direct reportage, it seems she grew up ensconced in a broader Black enslaved community — with some free people mixed in — who were devout, practicing Christians.

When Tubman was leased out by her owner, she was distraught. She loved her mother and father — this is evident in the primary materials. Being separated from them was very painful. One thing she did to survive was to pray. Apparently, she wouldn’t pray in proximity to the people who were renting her. Instead, she would go off to be alone with her prayers.

And as she grew older, her prayer life became much more intense. She began to feel she was in direct communication with God.

Tubman famously sustained a brain injury around the age of 12. How did that impact her spiritual life?

The story takes place in Dorchester County, Maryland, in a little general store that still exists today and was close to a plantation where Tubman was leased out. She noticed someone described in the original materials as a “young slave” running from an overseer toward the store. According to descriptions, Tubman threw herself in between when the overseer hurled a very heavy metal weight toward the boy. The weight hit Tubman in the head, and she was knocked to the floor. She says in the first accounts of her life that it cut into her skull. Nevertheless, she was sent right back to work in the fields the next day. She talks about how her head was bleeding as she was forced to work.

After this, Tubman experienced a dramatic change. Scholars today assess her resulting condition as temporal lobe epilepsy. She had terrible headaches. She had seizures that left her unconscious. But she also had an enriched sense of spiritual intuition and understanding, which she felt guided her actions for the rest of her life.

This story is often told as the moment when Tubman became a hero. But one of the things I write about in “Night Flyer” is that Tubman already had an active religious sense. She already had an extremely strong will. She was already resisting slavery in the limited ways that she could as a child.

I would say this moment expanded and intensified these qualities. But it did not initiate all the characteristics we associate today with Tubman’s bravery.

I want to end with her role as a caregiver, because I love how prominently you feature this aspect of her life.

Harriet Tubman lived according to an ethos of caregiving. I think it stemmed from her love of family, from her observations of how well her mother had cared for her and her siblings, and also from her belief in God. And she did something remarkable in the later decades of life. She got ahold of a piece of land and made space for people who needed a place to live. There were a number of Black people who were impoverished, who were ill, or who had disabilities squeezed into Tubman’s very small house on a farm in upstate New York.

While keeping this wide-open home, she even expanded her dream to include a facility on the grounds where she could care for Black people who were older or in need of an additional degree of care. Basically, Tubman wanted to build a healthcare facility. And she did it! She spent the rest of her life taking people in, aiding them, and showing them the kind of love she always received from her family, but never received from enslavers as a child. Actually, I think this is her greatest lesson for us today.

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This mural by artist Hector Duarte at the Chicago Public Library’s Budlong Woods Branch in West Ridge was commissioned to rejuvenate the reading garden.

Budlong Woods Branch library mural symbolizes immigration, metamorphosis, threats to books

Pilsen artist hector duarte and neighbors came together two years ago to create this stunning mural in west ridge..

With pages turning from parchment to petals, monarch butterflies soaring over colorful ceramic flowers and a garden below, the latest mural spanning Chicago Public Library’s Budlong Woods Branch is enough to make drivers on Lincoln Avenue stop the car and take it all in.

“It’s not only paint. It’s something more,” says Pilsen muralist Hector Duarte , who was commissioned to create the piece titled “Learning to Fly.”

The West Ridge library, at West Bryn Mawr and North Lincoln avenues, is in the 40th Ward, one of the city’s most diverse. “Every single person here is a migrant, and the symbol for migration is a butterfly,” Duarte says.

Library Branch Manager Tom Stark says the mural was commissioned “to rejuvenate the reading garden,” where the library hosts outdoor events among wildflowers and other plants growing around the building. What transformed, he says, is “the kind of mural that never fades to the background. It inspires joy over and over again.”

Mural artist Hector Duarte worked with neighbors on two summer days in 2022 to create the piece at the Budlong Woods Branch of the Chicago Public Library.

The mural was dedicated in July 2023, after Duarte spent years during the pandemic planning it and working with community members who crafted the ceramic flowers, insects, birds and other natural wonders at its base, inspired by the garden that grows below.

Neighbors of more than 20 different ethnicities and ages 3 to 92 connected over clay on two summer days in 2022, when they sat together outside and created pieces for a mosaic that spans the bottom of the mural.

Artist Hector Duarte had the help of Budlong Woods Branch Library neighbors on two summer days in 2022, when they worked with clay for a mosaic that spans the bottom of the library’s mural.

Ald. Andre Vasquez says the mural “helps to show how reading opens up the creativity in all of us and takes us places.” He calls it the “Budlong Bookend,” as it sits at one end of the Lincoln Avenue North Arts District.

The mural’s book pages, open and fluttering across two outer spans of the building’s facade, transform into flowers and then butterflies in a type of metamorphosis that Duarte says represents the immigration of people from all over the world into the neighborhoods surrounding the Budlong Woods Branch.

The left side of the mural by Hector Duarte at Budlong Woods Branch Library in the West Ridge neighborhood shows one half of an opening book.

Genevieve Bookwalter

The mural also represents the metamorphoses of books as they have changed from the first pages made of rudimentary wood pulp to today’s tablet technology. Durate says he fears that technological change will prompt people to abandon books — “to start to forget or put books in the basement or don’t open them anymore. Knowledge is in the books.”

Tom Stark, branch manager for the Budlong Woods Branch, says that fear is real for him as well, but more as a political repercussion than a consequence of technology — “what libraries are faced with now with efforts to censor and efforts to break knowledge.”

The right side of the new mural by Hector Duarte at the Budlong Woods Branch library in the West Ridge neighborhood shows book pages fluttering into flowers and surrounded by butterflies.

Stark says he appreciates how the mural changes depending on how someone looks at it.

“It’s lit up at night. You’re looking at it from far away, you see the big picture, the butterflies, the blooming flowers. When you look up close you see more detail, pieces of the ceramics and the various hummingbirds, bats and flowers.”

“There could be snow on the ground in January,” Stark says. “When you see this lovely mural, it inspires hope and happiness.”

Tom Stark, branch manager for the Budlong Woods Branch, says the nighttime view of the building’s mural gives a completely different perspective on the artwork.

Duarte says the glass between the two panels becomes another scene when the afternoon lights turn on.

“It only takes one moment for people to pay attention,” he says. When folks do that they will find hidden details in the mural, as well as the natural world. “When we pay attention we can start to make our garden.”

Duarte also wonders at the sense of connection he felt creating the mural with the diverse community that helped. “We think with the heart. Love is the most important thing for human beings. It’s the language for everyone.

Chicago’s murals & mosaics

Film adaptation of Holocaust survivor Maxwell Smart's memoir The Boy In The Woods will hit theatres this June

The boy in the woods is based on montreal author's memoir of survival and resilience.

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Holocaust survivor Maxwell "Max" Smart inspired wide audiences with his bestselling memoir The Boy In The Woods, which tells the story of his harrowing experience during the war. 

Now, it will be seen on the big screen in a film by the same name, which will be released on June 21. 

Smart was born in Poland in 1930. When he was 11, following the Nazi invasion, he witnessed his whole family killed. He would have suffered the same fate had his mother not ordered him to save himself and run into the forest. 

He lived in the forest alone for months, close to starvation, scavenging for food in farmers' fields and escaping Nazis on many occasions. 

He then met another boy wandering the forest and the two became fast friends, building a bunker to survive the winter. After a massacre in a nearby town, the boys discovered a baby, still alive, and rescued her — though not without great personal cost. 

"I never ever dreamt that my memoir The Boy in the Woods would ever become a movie," said Smart in an email to CBC Books. "To see my story turned into a movie is a true gift."

• 'Nothing has changed in 80 years,' says Holocaust survivor

The film is directed and written by Toronto-based Rebecca Snow, who first met Smart when she was interviewing him for her documentary Cheating Hitler: Surviving The Holocaust. 

"I knew that Max's story would make an amazing movie," she told CBC Books in an interview. 

 "There was something so interesting to me about how this kid [was] processing everything that's happening to him with the trauma of the war [...] and persecution against his people, but also in this very mythological landscape."

At the centre of Snow's movie is the friendship between the two boys, since she was so struck by how fundamental this relationship was to Smart's life, even so many years later. 

"He still holds this guilt around what happened to his little friend during that time in the woods," said Snow. "And that's a lot of what the film explores."

She also drew upon Yiddish folklore, which Smart would have known growing up, and magic realism to show how a child would cope with such horrific experiences.

"I had to be a little bit careful about going too crazy with magic realism because I was telling a true Holocaust story," said Snow.  "I felt a great responsibility to not blur the lines too much between reality and magic realism." 

Smart, an abstract artist himself, really appreciated those elements in the film and was very open to Snow's adaptation of his memoir. 

"She took such good care of my story and she did an extraordinary amount of research," said Smart. "Rebecca found out things that I didn't even know or remember because I was just a young boy. She found the graves of my parents and even found my parents' marriage license."

 "Working with Rebecca on this movie brings me back to my youth, it brings me back to the place where I was hiding and it brings me back to my mother when I talk to her and I see her."

Smart, who, for most of his life, didn't share his Holocaust story because of how painful the memories are, noted the importance of talking about history so it doesn't repeat itself.

"This story, and other stories like mine, cannot and should never be forgotten," he said.

Children are the true victims of war, he added. 

"I think when you can personalize history for people, tell human personal stories from history, then it kind of becomes much more than this dusty old past," said Snow. "People can't brush it off as easily."

"In the case of this story and films about the Holocaust, it's a warning from history. We live in a very distressing time right now. There's a lot of racial hatred. Antisemitism on the rise, Islamophobia is on the rise. There's a lot of polarizing rhetoric. And I think this film shows us just how dangerous that can be."

The Boy In The Woods stars Jett Klyne as Max, Richard Armitage as Christian farmer Jasko and David Kohlsmith as Yanek, Max's friend in the forest. It will be playing in theatres in Canada starting June 21.

The screening locations and times are available on the movie's Instagram page .

Corrections

• An earlier version of this article included June 21 as the U.S. release date. The film will currently only be released in Canada. Jun 20, 2024 2:02 PM ET

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The Vandals from The Bikeriders Are Based on a Real Motorcycle Club

The movie, starring Tom Hardy and Austin Butler, takes inspiration from a 1968 photobook documenting the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

Now in theaters, The Bikeriders— starring Tom Hardy , Austin Butler , Jodie Comer, and Mike Faist—tells the story of the Chicago Vandals, a fictionalized version of the Outlaws and some of their actual members. Inspired by Lyon’s acclaimed 1968 photobook of the same name, the movie examines the Vandals and their transition from a haven for outcasted bikers to something more sinister.

Similar to their onscreen counterparts, the influence and reputation of the Outlaws have changed dramatically since their inception.

The Outlaws originated almost 90 years ago

While The Bikeriders documents the founding and rise of the fictional Vandals starting in the 1960s, the Outlaws’ true story began three decades earlier. According to its official website , the club started as the McCook Outlaws Motorcycle Club in 1935. Riders formed the group outside of Matilda’s Bar in McCook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. After years of limited inactivity during World War II, the organization held its first major rally at Chicago’s Soldier Field in 1946.

According to Time , the war was a major catalyst for the rise of motorcycle culture in the United States. The resulting military surplus made bikes affordable, and returning veterans sought an adventurous escape from the boredom of civilian life. This led to the formation of other clubs, including the Hells Angels—the Outlaws’ chief rival—in Fontana, California, in 1948.

Meanwhile, the Outlaws continued attracting riders from throughout the Windy City and moved their headquarters from McCook in 1950 to become the Chicago Outlaws. Around this time, the club adopted its signature skull logo on shirts and jackets; the crossed pistons were added four years later.

By 1964, the Outlaws had incorporated chapters from Milwaukee and Louisville, Kentucky—and caught the interest of a young rider named Danny Lyon.

Lyon became an Outlaws member to create his book

Lyon was a first-year history student at the University of Chicago in 1959 when a classmate introduced him to motorcycle culture. The owner of a Triumph TR6 bike, he would soon combine this new passion with his budding journalistic skills.

But first, Lyon left Chicago in 1962 to document the Civil Rights Movement . He served as an official photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and befriended key figures like John Lewis and Julian Bond.

One year later, he embarked on his motorcycle project that would become The Bikeriders. Although Lyon said he received a very clean-cut transformation in the new film—Faist, who portrays his fictional stand-in “Danny,” doesn’t ride a motorcycle onscreen—the photographer became a full-fledged Outlaws member by 1965. A self-described “pothead” in the primarily beer-drinking club, he documented his fellow riders through photography and analog tape recordings.

Published in 1968, The Bikeriders book received acclaim and reportedly inspired the 1969 movie Easy Rider starring Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson . However, Lyon left the group and the biker lifestyle following its release. “I loved my work and loved what I was doing, but it was a subject to me,” Lyon told A Rabbit’s Foot , “so when I thought I had what I needed, I knew it was time to move on, and I did.”

Real recordings from Lyon are used in the movie

The Bikeriders movie draws heavily from Lyon’s source material, including using “verbatim imitations” of his audio recordings, according to Bleak Beauty . Lyon spoke with Outlaws members Cal, Zipco, and Cockroach, who all appear in the new movie. The re-creation treatment is especially true of Comer’s character, Kathy—modeled after the real-life Kathy Bauer—whose interviews form the narrative structure of the plot surrounding the fictional Vandals.

In 1966, the 25-year-old Bauer offered a glimpse into the Outlaws’ tight-knit nature by describing her first meeting with a rider named Benny (played by Butler). She explained in detail how the group, including leader Johnny Davis (Hardy), tricked Bauer into taking a ride on Benny’s motorcycle. “He takes off, he goes through the stoplights and everything so that I wouldn’t jump off,” Bauer told Lyon . “And I wouldn’t have jumped off anyway because I was scared s—less; I’d never been on a motorcycle in all my life.

“Johnny was real nice to me. He says, ‘Don’t worry, I’m the president of this club, and I wouldn’t let nothing happen to you. They’re only having fun, and this one guy wanted to go out with you,’” Bauer said. The unusual courtship worked as Bauer and Benny later married. Their relationship is featured prominently in the movie.

But while this cordiality is illustrated through the Outlaws’ onscreen stand-ins, the club has been linked to much more antagonistic activity in the decades since.

The Outlaws of today are pretty different from the movie

The Outlaws have spread far beyond their Chicago hub in the decades since, with the organization now boasting chapters across at least 26 states and reaching countries like France, Ireland, Japan, and Russia. According to the Chicago Reader , the Outlaws were estimated to have more than 1,500 members by 2014.

However, the club has developed a treacherous reputation. As of November 2023, the U.S. Justice Department classifies the Outlaws as one of 300 “outlaw motorcycle gangs,” or OMGs. These are described as “highly structured criminal organizations whose members engage in criminal activities such as violent crime, weapons trafficking, and drug trafficking.”

Much of this stems from the group’s ongoing feud with the Hells Angels. The Chicago Sun-Times has reported the two factions waged a violent turf war in the city during the 1990s—including a series of bombings, shootings, and stabbings—before reaching an uneasy truce. According to TwinCities.com , the Outlaws reportedly use the coded acronym ADIOS, which stands for “Angels die in Outlaw states.”

In a November 2016 interview with the Sun-Times , a former Outlaws member named Peter James said the Hells Angels’ presence in the Chicago area has grown more influential and could ignite more conflict. However, he suggested modern Outlaws have shifted away from crime and violence. “The times have changed. Somehow, there’s no testosterone out there,” James said. “It used to be the boss’ word was law. He says, ‘Ride off the cliff,’ and guys would ride off a cliff. The quality of the members has gone down.”

In any case, most riders have maintained that the club merely embraces an alternative lifestyle and isn’t an organized crime syndicate.

See The Bikeriders in Theaters Now

Director Jeff Nichols has said The Bikeriders isn’t meant to be a documentary of the Chicago Outlaws, nor to show disrespect toward the club in any way. He simply hopes to give viewers a sense of the time and societal conditions that allowed the group to thrive.

“When you’re looking at these guys, if you want to, you can simply dismiss them, but if you watch the film, you start to see how their brains work, and hopefully you start to identify with them a little bit,” he told A Rabbit’s Foot . “Not feeling like you belong, that’s something that everybody feels. It should be a unifying trait.”

The movie cruised into theaters on Friday and stars Tom Hardy as Johnny, Austin Butler as Benny, Jodie Comer as Kathy, and Mike Faist as Danny.

Get Tickets

Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.

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