“Bruce did look up to Allen as a mentor, an older brother…” Linda Lee Cadwell

In this book, Grandmaster Allen Joe tells an extraordinary personal story of his family, true love, triumph, heartbreaks, and his best friends. Here is the true story told with enormous honesty, keen insight, passion, and essence of the human life.

Allen takes us inside his family in Oakland’s Chinatown before World War II and shares his experience of war and meeting his best friend, Bruce Lee. When Bruce and Linda were married in 1964, they moved to Oakland and lived with James Lee, his wife, and two children. As you read the story of Allen’s life, you will learn how Allen’s long-time friendship with James led to a meeting with Bruce in Seattle. As a reader, you will enter Bruce Lee’s world and get to know James, Bruce, Allen, and George, the Four Musketeers.

Linda, Bruce Lee’s widow, says, “I know Allen’s story will help people better understand Bruce Lee’s story-the story of achieving excellence against all odds. That is what this book is about.”

“There are certain friends of my father I have gotten to know throughout my life that hold their friendship with my father in such a place of pure love. Their radiance blesses me every time I see them. Uncle Allen is one such friend. Thank you, Allen, for being such a bright light in my life.” – Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee’s daughter and chairman of the Bruce Lee Foundation

“Allen Joe’s story reveals how, when faced with long odds of success, persistently cultivating physical strength and mental strength enables us to overcome enormous odds. The bonds of friendship between Allen Joe and Bruce Lee offer every reader a powerful philosophy of living, innovating, and thriving.” – Sarah Miller Caldicott, great-grandniece of Thomas Edison; author of Midnight Lunch and Innovate Like Edison