Driven: A Daughter's Odyssey

by Julie Heldman

In the mid-20th century, the Heldmans were tennis royalty. Julie was a volatile and gutsy tennis star, twice ranked number 5 in the world. Her mother Gladys was broadly admired for her unique magazine, World Tennis, and for engineering the women’s tennis revolution. No one guessed that Gladys’s hidden emotional abuse was the source of Julie’s powerful drive.

Driven is a highly readable insider’s account of a pivotal time in women’s tennis history; an in-depth look at Gladys’s complex character; and the revealing story of Julie’s interior journey, both on and off the court.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Jewish

444 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 22, 2018

About the author

I was a world class tennis star, winning 22 world-class women’s tournaments, and notching victories over all the top stars of my era, including Billie Jean King, Margaret Court, Chris Evert, and Martina Navratilova. My highest women’s rankings were number two in the U.S. (twice) and number five in the world (twice). I represented the U.S. on two winning Federation Cup teams (the world team championships), and at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, where I won three medals, a gold, a silver, and a bronze. After I retired from competitive tennis, I became a successful journalist and a tennis broadcaster on network TV, and later a lawyer and then a businesswoman.

During my competitive years, I suffered from trauma resulting from child abuse and from undiagnosed mental illness. In my mid-50s, I had a cataclysmic breakdown that lasted nearly 15 years.

Reviews

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won a copy of this book.

I won this book right around the time HBO did their "Battle of the Sexes" movie. Julie Heldman was around at at that time. She played and beat Billie Jean King twice! She comes from a family of tennis players (both her parents played) and she has lived a really remarkable life. I would recommend this book for fans of tennis.

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't put down Driven, and traded a bit of sleep for it. Julie Heldman alternates exquisitely researched chapters about the history of pro tennis with stories about her own technical and psychological journey to the world's top 5. She's brutally honest and insightful about love lost (pun intended), the mindset of a champion, and her painfully complicated relationship with her mother, Virginia Slims founder/World Tennis publisher Gladys Heldman. The description of Gladys, a woman of contradictions, is a book within a book. Also illuminating is Julie's late-in-life bipolar diagnosis, which she bravely explores here in a way that few would have the guts to do. A public service. The few photos are great. My favorite was one of a teenage Martina wearing the same "You've Come a Long Way Baby" tee-shirt that I, too, rocked proudly as a member of the high school tennis team. Had this been strictly a tennis history I would have wanted to read it but not actually followed through. Interleaving the history within the story of a remarkable and fascinating woman--and her equally fascinating mother--made Driven a page turner.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story about overcoming hardships

I love a good, female empowering story about women overcoming hardships and this story is full of examples where that was shown time and time again. That said, I wish the story would have focused on maybe one or two very concise and detailed story lines. I felt at times the stories were very rushed and offered little detail as to offer the reader the full experience versus just the facts of the story.

Overall, to see what she was able to accomplish after facing such adversity with her mother at home really shows tremendous strength. Something a lot of people just wouldn’t be able to do had they been dealt the same cards.

It’s also very nice to learn some of the things that, as parents, we can do without even giving things much though. It was good to understand what effect that can have on a baby, growing child and young adult.

Very powerful story Just like I said, I wish it would have focused more on the explicit details of one or two things instead of everything. So much was just a bit overwhelming at times.

[booksandcarbs]

Julie Heldman's life has been challenging, to say the least. Her memoir describes her lonely childhood (including a very tortuous relationship with her mother), her tennis career, and her battle with mental illness. Her story also offers insight into the history of women's tennis and the move into open play. Her mother was a HUGE contributor to the tennis world and to women's tennis.