The single most intimate look at Muhammad Ali’s retirement, told through the story of an unexpected, powerful and life-changing friendship

In 1988, then struggling writer and video store worker Davis Miller drove to Muhammad Ali’s mother’s modest Louisville house, knocked on the door, and introduced himself to his childhood idol. The two became friends and had an uncommon bond, the sort that can be fashioned only in serendipitous ways and fortified through shared experiences. Miller draws from his remarkable moments with The Champ to give us a beautifully written portrait of a great man physically devastated but spiritually young --- playing mischievous tricks on unsuspecting guests, performing sleight of hand for any willing audience, and walking 10 miles each way to grab an ice cream sundae.

Informed by great literary journalists such as Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese, but in a timeless style that is distinctly his own, Miller gives us a series of extraordinary stories that coalesce into an unprecedentedly humanizing, intimate and tenderly observed portrait of one of the world’s most loved men.