As a result, people tend to peg him as either smart and refreshingly blunt, devoid of the Hollywood bull that greases the wheels of "Entertainment Tonight," or simply put, a dick. Those that fall into the latter camp miss a key element to McEnroe's current appeal—despite his earlier behavior as a venomous brat, at least now he seems to be in on the joke. Too bad there is so little of McEnroe's intelligently blunt on-air personality in his quasi-autobiography, "You Cannot Be Serious," written with the assistance of James Kaplan. The guy may have been a hell of a tennis player (winner of 154 tournament titles—more than any pro to ever play the game, as the book jacket not-so-modestly points out), and is an entertaining presence on TV, but a writer he is not. The sheer number of exclamation points he employs make you feel as though you're reading a narrative written by a fifth grader.

The first chapter, running all of fifteen pages, is, by far, the most revealing and interesting. He describes his day shortly before and after the terrorist attacks on September 11. After seeing news of the plane crashes at the World Trade Center, McEnroe (who lives in an enormous four-floor apartment on New York's Central Park West) inexplicably goes about his morning routine, including a session with his anger management therapist where neither discusses the unfolding, surreal horror of that day. Odd, to say the least, but consistent with McEnroe's relationship to the rest of world; he is the sun around which all other events revolve. He redeems himself though, admitting that at least one motivation for writing this book was, "to do some serious thinking about how much attention I actually need, and why I need it."

Unfortunately, the ensuing 300 pages—essentially brief descriptions of his various tennis matches as well as his two marriages—fail to live up to the promise offered in the initial chapter, leaving one with little insight into his personality.

"You Cannot Be Serious"
by John McEnroe with James Kaplan
G.P. Putnam's Sons, $25.95, 342 pages

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