Endgame: Bobby Fischer’s Remarkable Rise and Fall – from America’s Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness by Frank Brady – Halbs Book Review

I could not put this book down.

Frank Brady’s Endgame covers the entirety of Bobby Fischer’s life, from his youth to his unglamorous end. Fischer is presented as a magnetic character, simultaneously pulling and repelling friends, opponents, and the public at large. Had Fischer not had his caustic personality, it is hard to imagine how high he could’ve ascended in his mastery of chess. However, he did have a caustic personality, as well as a hateful belief system, and a fascination with younger women. Outside of his chess ability, he appeared to be off-putting at best.

Fischer grew up with an absent father and a very bright, hard-working mother and sister. He didn’t care for anything except chess. His mother, aside from her professional life, was politically active and a world traveler. His mother wasn’t sure what to do with young Fischer, exactly, and neither were many experts of the day. His life quickly became all about chess, with fill-in fathers and families helping to raise him and integrate him into the New York chess community. Fischer was barely a teenager when he became the youngest chess master in U.S. history and won the “Game of the Century,” a chess game that captured the attention and awe of players around the world. His pending defeat of the Soviet chess masters and his place in history seemed all but certain, but things did not quite play out that way.

Fischer could not stay out of his own way. While he did eventually become a world champion, his bizarre and continuous tournament demands, anti-Semitic rants, litigiousness, lack of interest in work, and fawning over a teenage girl kept him out of the public eye for much of his life. He surfed on couches around the world, and was basically banished from the U.S. for tax reasons. He died more or less alone.

His anger at authorities, paranoia, and belief in his own genius (not just at chess) read to me like schizophrenia. (I say this as a lay person who worked in a state hospital.) However, some of his therapist friends, while not his analysts, did not believe that mental illness was the reason for his behavior. I don’t know why Fischer pushed everyone away and refused to get along with anyone for very long. Given how many people tried to help him throughout his life, it’s hard to feel sorry for Fischer. It just seemed like he had a sad life.

In a rare moment of humility and self-awareness, Fischer did tell his would-be girlfriend, “I’m such a loser in the game of life.” I don’t know that anything made sense to Bobby Fischer except chess. Maybe that’s why he fought so hard about his games and legacy.

On a lighter note, Fischer was not a morning person. He woke up around 4 p.m. and had the following routine, which sounds like heaven to me: