Jane Leavy’s new biography, The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, was officially released today, so look for lots of reviews in the days and weeks ahead. Here’s one from Henry D. Fetter in The Wall Street Journal.
Upshot:
What drives “The Last Boy” forward is the author’s quest to answer the questions she would have asked of the man himself: “Mickey, what happened? Why did you do it? Why did you choose to lead the life you did?”
Bill Madden wrote this one that appeared in the New York Daily News.
Upshot:
A new book about Yankee icon Mickey Mantle paints a poignant portrait of a man haunted by sexual abuse and alcoholism – and who played in excruciating pain throughout his storied career.
and
Unlike her 2002 best seller about Sandy Koufax, which celebrated the Dodger lefty’s greatness, “The Last Boy” digs beneath Mantle’s baseball prowess to reveal the insecurities that defined him.
FYI, the Daily News will offer excerpts from the book beginning tomorrow.
And finally (for now), Allen Barra’s review from Salon.
You may recall, it was Barra’s review on her 1990 novel Squeeze Play was the launch point for my tirade on the questionable practices employed by publicists for cherry-picking words that put their product in the best possible light. (He does call Leavy’s newest offering “the most complete book ever about Mantle”; I wonder how one makes that kind of assessment.)
He concludes his review, “In the final analysis, Leavy remains a fan, and in the process makes fans of us all.”
is available on Amazon.com,
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