Hackett, Thomas

PERSONAL:

Born in Eugene, OR.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY.

CAREER:

Journalist.

WRITINGS:

(And photographer) Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, and Professional Wrestling, Ecco (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to numerous periodicals, including the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and New York Times Magazine. Also contributor to Salon.com

SIDELIGHTS:

Thomas Hackett began his writing career at the New Yorker, where he started working as a messenger. His first contributions were to the magazine's "Talk of the Town" feature, writing brief pieces about life in New York. Over the next twenty years, Hackett became a regular contributor to magazines and newspapers, including well-respected periodicals such as Rolling Stone and the New York Times Magazine. Hackett then branched out to books with Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, and Professional Wrestling. The work examines wrestling's history, glitzy facade, devoted fan base, and dangerous underworld, in addition to providing commentary on the phenomenon of the wrestler as celebrity and of the audience's common knowledge of the sport's prestaged choreography.

Writing for Booklist, Wes Lukowsky commented: "Through interviews with fans and wrestlers, Hackett offers a fascinating examination of the phenomenon of celebrity wrestlers." A Kirkus Reviews contributor maintained that Hackett's time spent with the sport's fans "juic[ed] up what could have been just another outsider's view of a subculture," and his analysis will leave readers "enlightened, strangely excited, and just a little bit scared." The book was called a "lively, involving survey" by a California Bookwatch reviewer, who described Hackett as hitting upon the "perfect formula" for introducing readers to the world of wrestling.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 1, 2006, Wes Lukowsky, review of Slaphappy: Pride, Prejudice, and Professional Wrestling, p. 15.

California Bookwatch, April, 2006, review of Slaphappy.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2006, review of Slaphappy, p. 28.

Publishers Weekly, December 12, 2005, review of Slaphappy, p. 51.