Synopses & Reviews
FRANK SINATRA FAWNED OVER HIM. WARREN ZEVON WROTE A TRIBUTE SONG. Sylvester Stallone produced his life story as a movie of the week. In the 1980s, Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini wasn’t merely the lightweight champ. An adoring public considered him a national hero, the
real Rocky.
From the mobbed-up steel city of Youngstown, Ohio, Mancini was cast as the savior of a sport: a righteous kid in a corrupt game, symbolically potent and demographically perfect, the last white ethnic. He fought for those left behind in busted-out mill towns across America. But most of all, he fought for his father. Lenny Mancini—the original Boom Boom, as he was called—had been a lightweight contender himself. But the elder Mancini’s dream ended on a battlefield in November 1944, when fragments from a German mortar shell nearly killed him. Almost four decades later, Ray promised to win the title his father could not. What came of that vow was a feel-good fable for network television.
But it all came apart November 13, 1982, in a brutal battle at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Mancini’s obscure Korean challenger, Duk Koo Kim, went down in the 14th round and never regained consciousness. Three months later, Kim’s despondent mother took her own life. The deaths would haunt Ray and ruin his carefully crafted image, suddenly transforming boxing’s All-American Boy into a pariah.
Now, thirty years after that nationally televised bout, Mark Kriegel finally uncovers the story’s full dimensions. In tracking the Mancini and Kim families across generations, Kriegel exacts confessions and excavates mysteries—from the killing of Mancini’s brother to the fate of Kim’s son. In scenes both brutal and tender, the narrative moves from Youngstown to New York, Vegas to Seoul, Reno to Hollywood, where the inevitably romantic idea of a fighter comes up against reality.
With the vivid style and deep reporting that have earned him renown as a biographer, Kriegel has written a fast-paced epic. The Good Son is an intimate history, a saga of fathers and fighters, loss and redemption.
Review
andlt;divandgt;"Our American literary tradition happily disregards the intellectuals and cherishes the sportswriters. As we should, for the great sportswriter combines the fan's love of American Culture with the scribe's intuition of tragedy. Or, as Red Smith, Damon Runyon, or Bill Heinz might have put it: 'Kriegel does for Boom Boom what Margaret Mitchell did for the Civil War.'"andlt;BRandgt; --David Mamet
Review
"As told by Mark Kriegel, the true tale of Boom Boom Mancini is one of blood and spirit, of the ghosts bequeathed from fathers to sons, from pugilists to their progeny. If
The Good Son is a sports book, it's the best I've ever read. Either way, in any genre, it is masterful storytelling."
--David Milch
Review
"The Good Son is muscular, literary sportswriting at its best, which is what we've come to expect from Mark Kriegel. But it's also much, much more. Here is the story not just of the rise and fall of a great prizefighter from a hard-luck industrial town--rendered, throughout, with tremendous heart--but of fathers and sons, (and brothers), of America's hunger for mythic heroes, of the tragic collision of two lives. It's a slender, yet epic book, as graceful, layered and achingly intimate as the finest novel."
--Jonathan Mahler, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning
Review
"It's easy to say
The Good Son will go down as one of the great boxing books of all time. But in telling the story of Ray (Boom Boom) Mancini, Mark Kriegel has accomplished something beyond sports. His book is, put simply, a masterpiece; an ode to father-son relationships, to the drive and makeup of champions; to what it is to experience the high of a world championship and the low of watching an opponent die in the ring. There's a reason Kriegel is one of America's elite biographers.
The Good Son is spectacular."
--Jeff Pearlman, New York Times bestselling author of Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton
Review
"A bloody, beautiful elegy to hard-won manhood,
The Good Son is a great read. Kriegel, one of America's best writers, is every bit as fierce and fearless as his subject."
—Scott Raab, author of The Whore of Akron and Esquire Writer at Large
Review
"Honestly, it's simply not possible to write a better book--sports, non-sports, fiction, non-fiction--than The Good Son, Mark Kriegel's remarkable biography of Boom Boom Mancini, which is by equal turns uplifting, heartbreaking, cautionary and redemptive. And impossible to put down."--Mike Vaccaro,
Review
"Kriegel is a meticulous researcher and gifted interviewer, and, in this stirring biography, the joy and tragedy experienced by the Mancini family is palpable--never more than in the account of a meeting between Kim's son and Ray 30 years after Kim died at Ray's hand. Kriegel picks his subjects carefully and does them justice. Can there be higher praise for a biographer?"--Booklist,
Review
"Kriegel's smoothly written biography tells the story of a rust belt hero whose boxing career was marred by tragedy in the ring.
Review
"Masterful." < -="" b="" -=""> - < -="" i="" -=""> - Los Angeles Times - < -="" -=""> - < -="" -="">
Review
"Superb." < -="" i="" -=""> - < -="" b="" -=""> - Boston Globe - < -="" -=""> - < -="" -="">
Review
andlt;divandgt;"The best sports biographer we have today."andlt;/divandgt;
Review
andlt;divandgt;"A timeless mythic tale of fathers and sons . . . Kriegel's reporting is impeccable, his passion muted but no less heartfelt for thatandlt;bandgt;. It takes one hell of a writer--period--to handle so rich a mix of manhood, legacy, and blood sport with such grace."andlt;/bandgt;andlt;/divandgt;
Review
andlt;divandgt;andlt;bandgt;"An absorbing blend of psychological drama and fearless reportage, Kriegel deconstructs the sprawling consequences of that fateful day at Caesars Palace, andlt;/bandgt;driving at the heart of where the heady romanticism and stark reality of the cruelest sport converge."andlt;/divandgt;
Review
andlt;divandgt;"With andlt;iandgt;The Good Sonandlt;/iandgt;,andlt;iandgt; andlt;/iandgt;Kriegel plays a long shot and wins a unanimous decision. . . . Kriegel knows how to set up a good emotional punch, andlt;bandgt;and plays on the major themes of Mancini's life like a master novelist.andlt;/bandgt;"andlt;/divandgt;
Review
andlt;divandgt;"Goes so deep into the history and entanglement of the dysfunctional and violence-based immigrant Mancini family and the men who strived to make their mark within it, that it andlt;bandgt;reads like something Dostoyevsky might have served up, had he been a modern-day sportswriterandlt;/bandgt;." andlt;/divandgt;
Review
andlt;divandgt;"Masterful."andlt;/divandgt;
Review
andlt;divandgt;"Superb."andlt;/divandgt;
Review
"Masterful."
Review
"Superb."
Synopsis
From the bestselling author of Pistol and Namath, a vivid, revealing, and fast-paced biography of the great boxer Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini.
Frank Sinatra fawned over him. Warren Zevon wrote a tribute song. Sylvester Stallone produced his life story as a movie of the week. In the 1980s, Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini wasn't merely the lightweight champ. An adoring public considered him a national hero, the real Rocky.
But it all came apart on November 13, 1982, in a brutal battle at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Mancini's obscure Korean challenger, Duk Koo Kim, went down in the fourteenth round and never regained consciousness. Three months later, Kim's despondent mother took her own life. The deaths would haunt Ray and ruin his carefully crafted image, suddenly transforming boxing's All-American Boy into a pariah. With the vivid style and deep reporting that have earned him renown as a biographer, Mark Kriegel has written a fast-paced epic. The Good Son is an intimate history, a saga of fathers and fighters, loss and redemption.
Synopsis
From the bestselling author of Pistol and Namath, a vivid, revealing, and fast-paced biography of the great boxer Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini.Frank Sinatra fawned over him. Warren Zevon wrote a tribute song about him. Sylvester Stallone produced a movie of the week of his life. In the 1980s, Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini wasn’t merely the lightweight champ. An adoring public considered him a national hero, the real Rocky.
Known best as a righteous kid in a corrupt game, symbolically potent, demographically perfect, and fighting to fulfill his late father’s dream, Mancini was cast as the savior of a sport. But it all came apart November 13, 1982, in a brutal battle at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Mancini’s obscure Korean challenger, Duk Koo Kim, went down and never regained consciousness. Three months later, Kim’s despondent mother took her own life. The deaths would haunt Ray and ruin his carefully crafted image, suddenly transforming boxing’s All-American Boy into a pariah.
Now, thirty years after that nationally televised bout, author Mark Kriegel finally uncovers the story’s full dimensions, exacting confessions and uncovering mysteries of the Mancini and Kim families across generations. In scenes both brutal and tender, Kriegel reveals an intimate history, a saga of fathers and fighters, loss and redemption. Says Jonathon Mahler, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning, “The Good Son is muscular, literary sportswriting at its best.”
Synopsis
From the bestselling author of andlt;iandgt;Pistolandlt;/iandgt; and andlt;iandgt;Namathandlt;/iandgt;, a vivid, revealing, and fast-paced biography of the great boxer Ray and#8220;Boom Boomand#8221; Mancini.andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Frank Sinatra fawned over him. Warren Zevon wrote a tribute song. Sylvester Stallone produced his life story as a movie of the week. In the 1980s, Ray and#8220;Boom Boomand#8221; Mancini wasnand#8217;t merely the lightweight champ. An adoring public considered him a national hero, the real Rocky.andlt;BRandgt; andlt;BRandgt;But it all came apart on November 13, 1982, in a brutal battle at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Manciniand#8217;s obscure Korean challenger, Duk Koo Kim, went down in the fourteenth round and never regained consciousness. Three months later, Kimand#8217;s despondent mother took her own life. The deaths would haunt Ray and ruin his carefully crafted image, suddenly transforming boxingand#8217;s All-American Boy into a pariah. With the vivid style and deep reporting that have earned him renown as a biographer, Mark Kriegel has written a fast-paced epic. andlt;iandgt;The Good Sonandlt;/iandgt; is an intimate history, a saga of fathers and fighters, loss and redemption.
About the Author
andlt;Bandgt;Mark Kriegel andlt;/Bandgt;is the author of two critically acclaimed bestsellers, andlt;iandgt;Namath: A Biographyandlt;/iandgt; and andlt;iandgt;Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravichandlt;/iandgt;. He is a veteran columnist and a commentator for the NFL Network. He lives with his daughter, Holiday, in Santa Monica, California.