7: The Mickey Mantle Novel (Hardcover)

by Peter Golenbock (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Book Description
In Peter Golenbock's shocking and revealing first novel, Mickey Mantle tells the hidden story of his life as a baseball hero, and asks for forgiveness from his friends and family. If the revelations in Jim Bouton's Ball Four were the first crack in the Mantle legend, then 7 smashes the myth to reveal the human being within.

Bestselling sportswriter Peter Golenbock knew Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin, Jim Bouton, Joe Pepitone, and many of Mantle's friends, family, and teammates. While Mickey was a good person at heart, he had a dark side that went far beyond his well-known alcoholism and infidelities. In this fictional portrait, Mickey--now in heaven--realizes that he's carrying a huge weight on his shoulders, as he did throughout his life. He needs to unburden himself of all the horrible things he did and understand for himself why he did them. He wants to make amends to the people he hurt, especially those dear to him; the fans he ignored and alienated; and the public who made him into a hero. Mickey never felt he deserved the adulation, could never live up to it, and tried his damnedest to prove it to everyone. The fact that he was human made the public love him that much more.

This Mickey Mantle is revealed as a man who lived in fear--fear of failure, of success, of life beyond baseball, and of commitment. His was a life filled with sex, yet devoid of deeper satisfactions. From the alcohol-fueled good times and bad, to the emptiness when the party was finally over, 7 has it all.

Through the recounting of his exploits on and off the field, some of them side-splittingly hilarious, some disturbing, and others that will make your head shake in sympathy, Mickey comes clean in this novel in the way he never could in real life. 7: The Mickey Mantle Novel puts you inside the locker room and bedroom with an American Icon every bit as flawed and human as we are.

---

How Mickey Mantle Wound Up in Heaven
An Exclusive Essay by Peter Golenbock
I met Mickey Mantle for the first time in 1974 when I was writing my first book, Dynasty. He had asked me to meet him at his home in Dallas, but when I arrived, I was informed he had flown to New York and I could meet him in the clubhouse of Yankee Stadium the next day. Back on the plane I went.

During an hour-long interview which I conducted in the Yankee clubhouse, Mickey talked about his career, his love of the game, and the nightmares that woke him up almost every night. During the middle of the interview New York Times reporter John Drebinger entered the clubhouse, and Mickey then told me that Drebby had a hearing aid and that Mickey would move his mouth, pretending to talk so Drebby would turn the hearing aid up, and when he got it up all the way, he'd scream at the top of his lungs. Mickey, myself, and everyone standing around listening roared with laughter.

That was Mickey, irreverent, complex, funny and sad.

Continue reading the essay

---

7 Second Interview: At Bat with Peter Golenbock

Q: You've been writing bestsellers for years, you saw the response to your friend Jim Bouton's Ball Four, and you even wrote a book (with Graig Nettles) called Balls. And you've already been through this once, with a controversial book being dropped by a major publisher and picked up by a smaller press, with Personal Fouls, your book on Jim Valvano. Were you surprised at what's happened so far with 7?

A: When I saw the outrage over the O.J. Simpson book, my immediate reaction was, Uh oh. Judith Regan became the focal point of the controversy, and since she was also my publisher, I was fully aware of what seemed sure to follow. I was hoping against hope, but unfortunately my instincts were correct.

Q: Mickey Mantle was your childhood hero. In the opening to the book, you recount the last conversation you had with him, when you try to explain to him what he meant to you. Do you still think of him as a hero?

A: He is more of a hero to me that ever. What most people refuse to accept is that alcoholism is a disease, and too often a deadly one. Mickey suffered with all the ills--both physical and social--of alcoholism for most of his life. In the end, he faced up to his problem. For a macho guy like Mickey, that took a lot of guts. To us, he was a hero. To himself he was a failure. How he must have suffered. That's what this book is all about.

Q: You've written books with and about Billy Martin, and he's a big figure in this book too. What was Mantle's relationship with him like?

A: They were best friends, drinking buddies, soul mates. They loved each other like brothers. They were also enablers. Both were alcoholics, but neither would admit it.

Q: You've talked to hundreds of old ballplayers for your books over the years. Was Mantle typical in the way he handled the time after he was done as a player, or the exception?

A: Mantle was an extreme example of an athlete who died inside the day he retired. Some athletes can smoothly make the transformation into the real world, but not most. In the days before the mega-salaries (when the athlete had to find a job after baseball) plenty of the players I interviewed felt lost and abandoned. Selling insurance or cars just didn’t excite them. But they had to do if they wanted to feed their families. Mickey was one of the few athletes who could sell his autograph and make his living that way. And he felt bad about having to do that.

Q: Mickey has a line in the book: "I'm only sorry camcorders didn't exist way back then. We'd-a made a fortune." Do you think things were different "way back then," or was the difference just that everybody didn't have camcorders?

A: Things were different back then. There wasn't the constant scrutiny of the athletes' actions like there is now. There was no SportsCenter or talk radio, no Internet blogging or YouTube. The sportswriters rarely wrote about what happened off the field. The players had a lot more privacy.

---

From Publishers Weekly
This book would make Henry Miller blush. Golenbock, author of many sports books, has written a novel about baseball great Mickey Mantle. It takes place in heaven, where Mantle, talking with dead baseball writer Leonard Shecter, coauthor of Ball Four, recalls his three favorite things in life: "puss," booze and, lastly, baseball. Mantle is the first-person narrator and in the first half of the book takes us on a hedonistic yet misogynistic ride. There are stories of him and fellow teammate Billy Martin and their endless pursuit of women, in bars, on ledges outside of hotel rooms, in dark movie theaters, with telescopes and while signing autographs ("We'll sign your balls if you'd... play with ours"). Mickey seems more of the gentleman ("I don't believe in having sex with women against their will the way Billy sometimes did"), but the quest for sex is endless. Perhaps the most controversial part of this book will be the part about Mantle supposedly bedding Marilyn Monroe while she was married to Joe DiMaggio. In a scene where Mantle prematurely ejaculates and Monroe is "frigid," Mantle pronounces Marilyn "a lousy lay." Dropped into the book apparently randomly are samples of Mantle's sophomoric humor ("How can you tell when two lesbians are twins? They lick alike") that are sometimes downright offensive. The second half of the book looks at Mantle's impressive Hall of Fame career, but no one will be talking about that. This is not a book to give to your favorite nephew. In fact, it will be interesting how Mantle's fans will receive it—as an insult to their hero? or a prurient look at the Mick that they can't help themselves from buying? 250,000 first printing. (Apr. 3)Note: This review is based on a galley received under the Regan Books imprint of HarperCollins; the book occasioned a firestorm of controversy and was contributory to publisher Judith Regan's firing and the cancellation of the book, since picked up by Lyons. The text of the book is unchanged.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st American edition (April 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1599212706
• ISBN-13: 978-1599212708
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #353,052 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars One, Two, Three Strikes - He's Out!, July 7, 2007

By	Randall Swearingen (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

There is a major contradiction in this book before the first chapter begins. The copyright page contains a disclaimer that states that references to real people, places, etc. are used fictitiously, come from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Then, the second page of the Introduction states that Mickey's friends swear the incidents in the book are true. I personally know many of Mickey's teammates and I have not found one yet who claims any of the stories are real. STRIKE ONE.

The author claims to know Mickey well enough to psychoanalyze him yet he incorrectly states several important facts about Mickey's life and career such as his age at death, the number of world championship teams he was on and the name of Mickey's first son. STRIKE TWO.

Golenbock is a gifted writer who has authored many non-fiction baseball books. It is unfortunate, that at this stage in his successful career, he elected to write a trashy and degrading novel, from his own imagination, about one of American's greatest baseball icons. STRIKE THREE - HE'S OUT!

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars RICK SHAQ GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "WARNING THIS IS RATED XXX-MINUS!", June 12, 2007

By	Rick Shaq Goldstein "Rick Shaq Goldstein" (Danville, Ca, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

How's this, for the way to start a review? I am far from being a prude, but I warn! I absolutely warn! 90% of the population not to buy this book, or you will be offended! The publisher of this book has a warning (Like the one on a cigarette package.) on the cover that says, and I quote: Mickey says: "If y'all don't want to read about sex, don't buy this book." I say: "Reading about sex is one thing, but totally offending all women on the planet is another! In fact, this will offend any men who are polite and caring!" This is a book that didn't really need to be written, and I can see why Mantle's family was upset. Now, despite the author slyly hiding behind the word "novel" in the heading, he contradicts that mask, in his introduction, on page viii when he writes: "Mickey's friends swear that the incidents in this book are true." He also writes: "All I know is that Mickey's friends who have read the manuscript say this is the closest you will ever get to the reality of Mickey's life." This book is demeaning garbage. You can barely go 2 paragraphs without Mickey making a derogatory comment about women with a well-used word that starts with "P". (I'm trying to stay within Amazon's decency restrictions.) And that word may not even be in the top 5 derogatory descriptions he uses throughout the book. This book not only tears Mickey down lower than you would think possible, but it also takes Billy Martin down beneath, even what his biggest detractor's could imagine. Their alcoholic, misogynistic, lowlife, behavior, is totally offensive, to any respectable human being. There's more filth I could describe, but it wouldn't pass the decency levels on this web-site. P.S. The fact that this story is supposed to take place in heaven, is the biggest abomination of all!

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Controversy, Another Winning Read, April 9, 2007

By	Mr. Richard D. Coreno "Mr. C" (Berea, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Author Peter Golenbock had been in this situation before; ready to step up to the plate with bases juiced in the bottom of the ninth inning, only to have the pitcher leave the mound with the only baseball on the sandlot.

7: The Mickey Mantle Novel, was slated for release by HarperCollins through Regan Books (publisher Judith Regan). The project was shelved when Regan was fired over a number of issues, one reportedly was this book.

Years ago, Golenbock's expose of coach Jim Valvano and his North Carolina State men's basketball program, Personal Fouls, was shelved by a major publisher, but quickly released by a smaller press. The allegations in the book was a major factor in Valvano being fired by the university.

Just like with Personal Fouls, Golenbock found another publisher, Lyons Press, for his first novel. It is based on interviews and meetings Golenbock had with Mantle, interviews/conversations with former teammates and friends & the vast amount of material that has been published on the Yankee great.

It is written from Mantle's perspective as he reflects on his life while sitting in Heaven's dugout. And this isn't the myth of Mantle; it is a flesh and blood recollection of a life that included living in a fast lane that would make most male pop star's blush, incredible arrogance - sometimes brought on by heavy drinking - and seemingly a real appreciation of life only in the closing months of a terminal illness.

"My worst critics should understand that this book was written because I loved the guy," says Golenbock.

Those critics won't be appeased, though, and will view the novel as a slam against an icon who is conveniently not around to defend himself. But somehow I think Mantle is sitting in that dugout with Billy, Babe & Joe and - through that boyish grin - saying, "I'm glad someone is finally bringing my legend to life."