Part 1 of Steve Keirn’s story compelling and emotional
Steve Keirn and Ian Douglass have formed a “fabulous” tag team for a well-written and fun read, that can make the reader laugh out loud or shed a tear. Throughout his book The Keirn Chronicles, Volume One, The Fabulous Wrestling Life of Steve Keirn, we join Keirn on a journey where he is always searching for something.
When an autobiography declares that it is volume one the reader can be left to wonder what else does he have to tell. The stories and experiences of the wrestler pale in comparison to the life lived outside of the ring. At the end of the 419-page book I was certain that volume two would be outstanding. [It has since been released.]
Keirn grew up in a military household where his dad’s day job was as an air force pilot. At the age of 13, his world was turned upside down as his father’s plane went missing in the early days of the Vietnam War. Almost instantly his family was thrown not only into emotional turmoil but financial as well. Keirn not only attends school but needs to work a job after classes in order to help make ends meet.
This is the start of his search. With his father gone, Steve looks for role models in coaches, friends and in the kingpin of Florida wrestling Eddie Graham.
Keirn learns the trade of a professional wrestler and his journey continues as he seeks acceptance from his peers and he searches for opportunities to improve. Keirn gets the chance to wrestle in Guatemala and learns to be a heel instead of the white meat babyface he was used to portraying.
The most emotionally charged moment of the book is when Keirn learns that after eight years away his father is alive. His dad had been a prisoner of war and was released. When he is reunited with his father, he is no longer the boy he was physically but rather, he is now a man. Upon seeing his father again, Steve Keirn becomes the child once more and the joy and pain of eight years pours out as he embraces his father. This passage might be the best section of a wrestling book I have ever read.
The search continues for Keirn. He discovers that those he held up as role models don’t have the moral fiber that is embedded in his father. The men he looked to as real men fall apart under scrutiny.
Keirn travels the wrestling territories where he searches for and finds love. He also finds a tag team partner in Memphis named Stan Lane and together they create the image of The Fabulous Ones, a sexy pair that draws the women to the arenas and makes Keirn some big-time money.
Another thing Keirn searches for is respect. Keirn can’t stand being disrespected and he is always willing to stand up for what he believes in even if that means grabbing a chair and waffling the Road Warriors. Traveling the road with his partner Lane, he has a friend he bonds with and together they push the boundaries of what a pretty boy tag team should or could be.
He is amazed when he walked into a toy store and could buy his own AWA action figure.
The search ends with a what is next sort of feeling. He went through the territories, his career is at a crossroads and the WWF is taking on all the top talent in their national expansion. Keirn is seeing the effects of the decline of the territories and we are left with the feeling that this guy will do just fine but where will he go next.
The Keirn Chronicles, Volume One, The Fabulous Wrestling Life of Steve Keirn is a great read and a sober, even view of the territory days of the 1970s and 1980s. I highly recommend this book as it is hard to put down and I loved the easy flow of the tale. It was fabulous.
