Writing as a Racine, Wis., native and frequent attendee at Lambeau Field during the Rodgers years, I can tell you it is no surprise to read the petulant former Green Bay Packers quarterback described as a crackpot conspiracy theorist who never says “I’m sorry” and is “overly sensitive.”

That’s clear from “Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers,” a biography by Ian O’Connor that promises exclusive interviews about Rodgers’ estrangement from his family, his misleading statements about being COVID-vaccinated (he wasn’t/isn’t) and his troubled relationships with coaches.

O’Connor is a terrific writer who spends about three-fourths of the book recounting, absorbingly, the highlights of Rodgers’ career, from severely undersized high school quarterback to community college star to the University of California to Green Bay. O’Connor makes you feel like you were present for, for instance, the humiliating 2005 NFL draft when Rodgers fell way below the top five picks he had been promised he’d be among.

Thanks to dozens of interviews, there’s also insight into the deals that brought him, first, to Green Bay, and last year to New York, where he tore his Achilles heel after four plays in a Jets uniform (word is, he will be a factor this season).

But the hot goss is not so hot. O’Connor interviewed the quarterback. In fact, he may have spent more time with Rodgers in the past decade than have Rodgers’ parents, whose calls he refused to take for more than nine years. But those interviews result in little more than the low-information comments Rodgers has been giving all along.

The split with his family may have something to do with former fiancée Olivia Munn, whom Rodgers’ folks didn’t love, but it’s more likely the result of the quarterback rejecting their religion. (One incredible detail O’Connor does get is that they didn’t like it that their 30-something son was having sex without benefit of marriage.) Rodgers allows as how he could have been clearer about vaccinations, but he still doubts their (proven) efficacy. Weirdly, in almost the same breath, his response to the under-studied South American hallucinogenic ayahuasca is, basically, “Bring it on.”

“Darkness” emphasizes Rodgers’ intelligence but also finds him lapping up one dopey conspiracy after another, and also finds him bristling at the cold shoulder he received from starting quarterback Brett Favre when he arrived in Green Bay, then meting out the same treatment to his successor, Jordan Love.

Out of the Darkness (Mariner)

O’Connor’s interview with Rodgers doesn’t seem to have produced much new, off-the-field information, but if an insightful look at the magic he has made on the gridiron is what you seek, “Out of the Darkness” could be for you.

Out of the Darkness

By: Ian O’Connor.

Publisher: Mariner, 434 pages, $29.99.

about the writer

Chris Hewitt

Critic / Editor

Interim books editor Chris Hewitt previously worked at the Pioneer Press in St. Paul, where he wrote about movies and theater.

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