Mo’ Mantle

Many thanks to Greg Spira for these outlets that ran reviews of Jane Leavy’s new biography, The Last Boy:

From Keith Olberman in the Sunday NY Times Book Review section. Upshot: “Leavy comes as close as perhaps anyone ever has to answering “What makes Mantle Mantle?” She transcends the familiarity of the subject, cuts through both the hero worship and the backlash of pedestal-wrecking in the late 20th century, treats evenly his belated sobriety and the controversial liver transplant (doomed mid-surgery by an oncologist’s discovery that the cancer had spread), and handles his infidelity with dispassion…. It is hard fact, reported by someone greatly skilled at that craft, assembled into an atypical biography by someone equally skilled at doing that, and presented so that the reader and not the author draws nearly all the conclusions.”

From Bill Lyon of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Upshot: “It is a tale deftly told, rich in detail, unvarnished and unsparing, researched to a fare-thee-well, alternatively fluid and florid, and without staleness because Leavy has found a new angle from which to come at a well-worked-over subject.”

From Kevin Prokosh of the Winnepeg Free Press. Upshot: “[t]he timing of another biography seems odd. Now 58, she talked to Mantle at an Atlantic City hotel in 1983 for a newspaper profile. Her lengthy description of the encounter represents the freshest and most readable part of The Last Boy. She mixes portions about it with chapters highlighting 20 significant days in Mantle’s storied but well-documented life. Her attempts to add significantly to Mantleology produces limited success….”

From Bob Hoover of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Upshot: “‘The Last Boy,’ despite its pretentious if not silly subtitle, is as full a portrait of an American hero as we’ll find. As we are well aware here in Pittsburgh, our sports stars are still human despite their accomplishments on the field. Many of us expect them to perform as superlatively out of uniform as well, but writers like Jane Leavy know better.”