THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9409280398
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book review
SOURCE: BY AUDREY KNOTH
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
THE TOTAL ZONE
MARTINA NAVRATILOVA AND LIZ NICKLES
Villard Books. 302 pp. $21.
The Total Zone has all the elements of an ace mystery: a sassy female sleuth, a celebrity co-author with an insider's view of a big-money sport, and a topic - teen burnout on the tennis tour - that sizzles in today's headlines.
But just as a player needs a superior mental edge as well as physical prowess to vanquish all comers, so does a standout mystery require finesse of character along with plot ingredients. In this crucial arena, The Total Zone is a flat drive that doesn't make it over the net.
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova penned The Total Zone with the assistance of professional writer Liz Nickles. The book's narrator is fictional former teen tennis sensation Jordan Myles, whose career has been sidelined by a mountain-climbing injury. Myles now serves as a physical therapist at the Desert Springs Sport Science Clinic, where top athletes flock to tune up their performances.
When 16-year-old phenom Audrey Armat comes to Desert Springs in search of a cure for her recent slump, Myles is assigned to work with her. She has been curious about Audrey, a telegenic blonde known on the court for ``feeding the hungry crowd with carefully measured doses of virtuosity combined with a sweetness. . . irresistible to the fans and the media alike.''
Myles quickly discovers the bleak truth of Audrey's life (child stars Jennifer Capriati and Mary Pierce come to mind, too): domineering parents, a ``healthy'' diet that borders on privation, no social life. Shortly into her stay at Desert Springs, Audrey runs away. The clinic, anxious to locate her and save its reputation, tells Myles to use her intimate knowledge of the sports world to track Audrey down.
The search takes Myles to renowned tennis locations, including Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Along the way, she encounters real-life players such as Gabriela Sabatini and fictional personalities modeled on people that tennis buffs will easily recognize.
Navratilova herself is clearly the inspiration for a peripheral character named Mariska, flatteringly described as ``one of those people who has achieved a pinnacle so rarified that her last name is an unnecessary appendage. She has true charisma, but has sustained the public's interest for this long because of sheer talent and ability. . . ''
Tennis fans will be intrigued by nuggets of game trivia sprinkled throughout The Total Zone. We learn, for example, that the pros go through as many as 100 expensive customized rackets in a month. Each racket undergoes a painstaking restringing after one use and cannot be restrung a second time.
But dedicated mystery readers will be disappointed by what evolves into a rather unoriginal story. Particularly unsettling is the fact that Myles' appearance - short dark hair, hazel eyes, once-broken nose and habit of eschewing makeup - is very similar to that of Sue Grafton's well-known private eye, Kinsey Milhone.
While the resemblance is probably unintentional, it correctly presages that The Total Zone runs along what have become fairly standard lines: gutsy female detective outwitting mayhem and uncovering plots. The genre delights when gifted writers such as Grafton, Sara Paretsky and, more recently, Gillian Farrell, create women of original voices.
Navratilova and Nickles undoubtedly designed Jordan Myles with sassiness in mind. She travels with a dog, loves the music of country's k.d. lang and rents a Mazda Miata when she hits the road.
But the most fascinating aspect of the new female sleuths isn't their externals. It's their distinctively phrased views of life; each has a certain jaundice, humor, passion or curiosity that makes the reader want to meet her. Clear away the dog, music and convertible, and the tennis, and there's little that's new in The Total Zone.
In 1985, Navratilova teamed with a co-author to write her autobiography, Martina. That book, also presented in the first person, recounts Navratilova's extraordinary story in unaffected and moving terms that ring true. Let's hear more about women's tennis, Martina - but next time, tell it to us in your own voice. MEMO: Audrey Knoth is a free-lance writer and executive director at a Norfolk
public relations firm. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Navratilova
Nickles
by CNB