Review: The Escape

 The Escape won an award for the best Sports-related book of the year. It was on sale for $3 on Amazon (and the library didn't have a copy). The book is an autobiography of Robert Millar (now Philippa York), a professional cyclist in the 1980s and 1990s who transitioned to being a woman after he retired from the sport.

What makes the book unique is that rather than being ghost-written by David Walsh, it is written as a series of conversations between Walsh and York as they are journalists for two different periodicals covering the 2020 Tour de France. So the book goes from the 2020 Tour de France to older editions of the same race from Robert Millar's point of view, which sort of makes you think that the various editions of the Tour are largely similar, going over the same mountains with similar rivalries between the various participants.

This is not true, of course. Millar retired from cycling just as the EPO era was taking off. Before that, the drug of choice were steroids, which weren't actually very effective for endurance sports. So while York does admit that Millar did occasionally dope, she could claim that while cheating was rampant it didn't have much effect on the race.

Probably the best reason to read this book is to gain an understanding of how someone could grow up wanting to be a woman yet was gifted with a strong body that could reach the pinnacle of an extremely male-dominated and demanding sport, but at all points could still wish that he was a woman. Keep in mind that Millar did marry a straight woman and had 2 children!

Having said that, you get the feeling that Millar was such a completely different person from York (Walsh mentioned that no way would have wanted to drive around France with Millar!) that her perspective on Millar was maybe quite warped.

I am of two minds about this book. On the one hand, I think I would have preferred a traditional ghost-written autobiography. The way the book was written it felt constantly jarring to flip from a contemporary Tour De France to previous races. I feel like I gained a lot more understanding of what a body dysmorphic person feels. But I also got no special insight on what a professional cyclist's life was like. Millar's story was just too unique.

The book is short and a quick read so maybe you should just read it and judge for yourself.