Customer Reviews

Tietam Brown

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have read thousands of books, and I have never read one quite like this one. In fact, "Tietam Brown" is so different I am having a hard time quantifying it for this review. But I do know this: It's good. Very good for a first fictional effort. Part comedy, part tragedy, part horror, part coming of age story, "Tietam" really cannot be summed up with one sentence. Much like real life, the bad blends with the good, "normal" is only a word, no one is totally what they seem, and those whom we love the most can also hurt us the most.

If you have read Foley's autobiographical works, "Have a Nice Day" and "Foley Is Good" or even just watched his wrestling career on TV, then you will see flashes of Mick in "Tietam." Bits of Mick's quirks are entwined in both Tietam and Andy, and occasionally a "Mickism" is used. In the beginning, the writing style pretty closely follows "Have a Nice Day," but soon finds its own rhythm and goes down a much darker and more literary path. Mick's perverse humor is also very apparent, much to my delight. :)

But don't let the author's name and background fool you: This is not a "wrasslin' book" or "Foley's Life Part 3." Instead, "Tietam" is a wonderful study of forgiveness, of right and wrong, of the limits that people put on their love -- both for themselves and others.

Most of all, it's the story of Andy Brown, a high school student who has spent most of his life in foster homes and an orphanage and who survived a terrible car accident at the age of five. His father, an enigmatic, mercurial man, comes into his life after a 17-year absence, and immediately the reader knows Andy will never be the same. However, this reader was shocked to find out just what an emotional, strange journey he will have. Put on your seatbelt and keep it on -- you will need it, because this is one powerful, somewhat surreal story.

The character that steals the show is Antietam "Tietam" Brown, Andy's father. He's smart, vulgar and loves deeply. He exercises naked, has purple fuzzy dice hanging on his rearview and sings along with Barry Manilow. And he can go from "normal" to crazy and criminal in the blink of an eye. He's not altogether sane. Antietam also has deeply conflicting views of the world and the people closest to him that he does not see as a problem.

And that is what makes him so essentially different from Andy. It can be argued that Andy has had a much harder life than his father did up to that age, and yet, Andy has a better understanding of the world around him. It is ironic that a confused, lonely teen has a much clearer moral vision for himself than his world-weary, road-hardened father does, but it is nonetheless true that Andy has the ability to see the shades of meaning, the layers of complexity in people and events that black-and-white thinker Tietam is incapable of.

But most of all, Andy is able to forgive. The further you go into the story, the more you realize how important this is. I won't say anything more about it, because I don't want to give away the story, but the idea of redemption runs very strong in "Tietam."

What sort of person would you be if you were incapable of forgiving anyone, most especially yourself? Do you believe that people can truly change for the better? If those questions intrigue you, then you will enjoy "Tietam Brown" as thoroughly as I did.

First off, let me just say that I've done of lot of reading over the years. I have a BA in history and English literature, an MA in history, and nearly a Ph.D. in history. I'm pretty selective in what I read. I originally bought this book, not because I found the story interesting, but becasue I thought I owed it to Mick Foley. Foley gave so much to all of us as fans of wrestling, that I thought I owed it to him to buy his novel and give it a chance. I finally just now got around to reading it, and once I began I didn't put it down until I was finished. It was, without a doubt, one of the best novels I've ever read, and I've read a lot of them.

The story just keeps you glued to the page. It's full of humor, and if you know Foley, it's full of his particular brand of humor. It's also one of the darkest things I've ever read. Knowing that Foley grew up in a loving family and now has one of his own, one wonders where this dark tale comes from. If you've ever seen his old Cactus Jack promos, maybe it comes from that same place. But the horrible things that happen to Andy Brown are not just there to shock. They are central to a story about how a human being can endure so much hell and somehow still emerge in the end as a good person. I think that is the central question Foley is asking: What is a good person? I think his answer is one who comes out undefeated by the terrible things that life can hand to us. Tietam Brown is evil, not because of the things he does, but because of what he has let tradgedy do to him. It's a bit like why Captain Ahab is evil and unredeemable.

Mick Foley has really written something special here. The next time he publishes a novel, I'll buy it because of its own merits, not because of my admiration for the author's past acheivements.

Okay, I know what you are thinking... Mankind/Cactus Jack/Dude Love of WWF fame wrote a fictional story?!! I took a triple take too when I saw the yellow cover beckoning me like a light from lighthouse. It screemed: "Read Me," or at least "read the brief description of me and take me home..." So i figured, what the hell, and gave Mick Foley's fictional debut a worthy try agreeing inside my head that if the first thirty pages didn't grab a hold of me in some way, then I would put it down and never try again.

So, I read those first thirty pages and in the next ten hours, with some minor interruptions in between, closed the final page of the epilogue and ultimately the new book with a feeling of satisfaction but not being entirely fulfilled.

It is a good story - - no scratch that - - it is a fantastic read, with memorable characters and plot lines that develop so naturally that I felt at times that Foley HAD TO HAVE a ghost writer. Alas, no ghost writer here and what Foley has created is a raw coming-of-age tale... A tougher "Catcher in the Rye," if you will.

What makes this tale work is main character and his antagonist. (I use this term loosely for Andy's father because for more than half the story there is no hint of antagonism at all in Antietam Brown, and ultimately it is this deception pulled on the reader that will literally anger them but allow them to enjoy it all the same) Andy Brown is a kid who has seen it all, lived through it all, and lived to tell the tale. We earnestly hope that Andy (short for Antietam, his father's name) can live to see better days and for a while, we get to see that dream become a reality. Life, however, has a way of snapping reality into direct focus and we realize that life is only as good as you can make it. Poor, poor Andy Brown. Like I said, we feel for this kid, although rage and violence are his staple emotions, we want to see him win.

As for Antietam Brown Sr., we like him for most of the duration...even if he is a womanizing pig who keeps trophies from his conquests (read the story, you'll see what I mean). But oh how quickly our thoughts about him can change. He clearly is the villain here, and a bloody darn good one at that. He and his son are the reason this works so well and reads so fluidly. The rest of the characters, although they are not the focal point of the story, hold up well on thier own too... however, some of them are disjointed and make way too brief of an appearance. I hope to see Foley develop his characters a bit more deeply in the future - - that's my only complaint.

Overall, a hell of a debut from a guy with a hell of a knack for writing. I had no idea he had it in him, but I'm glad he does.

4 1/2 stars!

I will preface by comments by admitting upfront that I was (and still am but to a much lesser degree) a wrestling fan. More specifically, I am a Foley fan. I read "Have a Nice Day" but not "Foley is Good."

I have all my teeth. I am a middle-aged attorney. Not that those things are truly meaningful to anybody but my mother.

I loved "Tietam Brown." I want more. I want to know what happens to the main characters in this book, and I hope Foley will write another. If he does not, however, I am likely to read whatever he writes. I enjoy the Everyman perspective, and the pop culture references.

Some reviewers have been critical of the violence depicted in this book. However, I am not persuaded that this violence is gratuitous. If this story was ever made into a movie, I can see a director exploiting those aspects for the viewer for shock value. Within the context of this story, however, the violent acts are not drawnout but rather interspersed to help us understand the characters' psyche.

Bang Bang.

Ray Asher
Chicago

Mick Foley's greatest strength and weakness as a novelist is that people know who he is. Foley used to make his living as a professional wrestler, in multiple personas such as "Cactus Jack Manson," "Mankind," and "Foley", which were alternately malevolent and (from a fan standpoint) benevolent but always slightly wacky. Foley retired a few years ago but is apparently mulling a return to the ring; in the interim, he has made the transition to author. Foley has written two nonfiction bestsellers, HAVE A NICE DAY and FOLEY IS GOOD, and has written a couple of children's books, but TIETAM BROWN is his first foray into the world of written fiction.

TIETAM BROWN is a surprisingly confident work for a first novel. It is primarily the story of a couple of months in the life of Antietam (Andy) Brown, a high school senior who is largely unpopular but for the winsome and improbable attentions of Terri Lynn Johnson --- cheerleader, minister's daughter, and most popular girl in town. Brown is slightly off-kilter, deserted by his father at birth (an event that also resulted in the death of his mother).

Brown has been in and out of foster homes and detention centers when his long-lost father finally makes contact and bring him home. Antietam Brown IV is hardly a role model, parading a series of bed partners in front of his son and adhering to the "three strikes" rule. Johnson would appear to be Andy's salvation and, indeed, in many ways she is. She also, alas, has the power to destroy him, a process that Andy seems to almost haplessly encourage. There additionally are surprises in store for both father and son, few of which are pleasant. It is as if their lives are salted.

TIETAM BROWN is hardly an uplifting story; the violence is graphic, brutal and at times gratuitous, and a majority of the sexual couplings have an air of oneupsmanship and forced activity as opposed to true sharing of passion. This is a world however that definitely exists, though relatively few of us know of it. Foley also does a first-rate job --- does he ever --- of capturing the angst of the teenage high school male. Although TIETAM BROWN is, at least as I understand it, non-autobiographical, some of the passages certainly have the ring of truth about them.

While TIETAM BROWN is not CATCHER IN THE RYE, it is an interesting, and at times riveting, coming-of-age novel from a writer who may have a depth of talent that has yet to be plumbed.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

I'm a huge fan of Mick Foley's work as a wrestler, and have thought for years that he is a natural for crossing over into the mainstream media, with his curious combination of family-man eloquence and psychotic ultra-showmanship. I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that he was working on a novel, and really excited to pick it up at a signing the day it came out.

Foley does indeed put together a decent story and a few interesting characters in TIETAM BROWN, but is a bit too dependent on black-or-white characterization -- the women are, by and large, celestial beings full of good intentions, and the men are scumbags who look out for themselves above all else. Even the narrator, who is a character with real promise, ends up seeming less developed than he should be by the end of the book (this is a complaint which can also be levelled against Dickens, of course). There are a few scenes of violence which are genuinely off-putting, and that's a good thing, as it's certainly Foley's intent (no glorification of violence to be found in here, folks).

Part of the problem is that Foley is such a strong and established personality that it is impossible to read this without seeing the similarities in writing style to his previous memoirs; when he describes someone as "wearing a crimson mask" of blood after a fight, it's a direct usage of a pro-wrestling commentary cliche, and for a narrator who has no interest in wrestling to use that term seems a bit farfetched, a bit like Foley is trying to pass it off as poetic description. There are also a few really obvious in-jokes, such as a jab at Foley's friend Dee Snider of Twisted Sister and a section where he places himself (college-aged Foley, right before he became a wrestler) into the background of a scene, then has his main characters talk about him, down to describing his height and weight. *SPOILER* Tietam Brown (the father and, in many ways, the focus of the novel) is an ex-wrestler, but that only shows up in the last quarter of the book, and seems to be mainly an opportunity for Foley to explain the politics of regional pro-wrestling in the days before the WWF's national broadcasting. Learning that he's an ex-fighter doesn't really add anything to the character, or explain why he is how he is, which is strange to me in that I really expected Tietam to be an analysis of the angry-loner persona Foley created with his Cactus Jack character, as whom he wrestled on and off for over a decade. At times, the novel seems 'neither fish nor fowl,' a bit too focused on Foley's history and circle of friends and peers, at times a bit too unwilling to directly relate the characters to Foley's past and present.

That said, it's a good, dark story, and an engaging enough read that I'd recommend it to people who like, say, Chuck Palahniuk's novels. First novels are often pretty clumsy, and some of my favorite authors' first books are nowhere near as good as what came later (Richard Price started out as an author of about the same level as this). My hope is that Foley will work with an editor who is a bit more aggressive about saying "no" at times, and that he himself will be willing to have his next book be "by the author of TIETAM BROWN" rather than "by the WWF champion and author of HAVE A NICE DAY!" I think that that will really help him develop as a writer, and I look forward to seeing that development.

Tietam Brown is an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of Mick Foley's previous work or is just looking for a good novel to read.

Tietam Brown is a book about a boy named Antietam 'Andy' Brown, named after his grandfather that died fighting in one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, who after some unfortunate incidents, has lost an ear and the use of his right hand. We see this story flash between his past where his deadbeat father had left him when he was young and soon after, his mother eventually died. As he goes from foster family to foster family, he has had to put up with a child molester and an abusive drunk.

In the present time, Andy was nearly raped by a couple of bullies at school and had the ... beat out of him by a teacher/coach pumped up on steroids. His father has come back after eight years and now has custody of Andy, and he ends up going through some changes. He goes from being a drunk guy who sleeps with practically every woman he meets to someone who looks to protect and teach his son about the different ways of life.

As I read this story, I found myself relating to Andy more and more because while I have the use of both hands, I was born with a left ear smaller than my right, and I am unable to hear out of it, so that would be the equivalent of missing a whole ear. I knew what it was like to be ridiculed and pushed around by other people, but I eventually toughened up and learned to put up with it, much like what Andy has done.

I can say that Tietam Brown is an excellent debut novel from Mick Foley and I'm looking forward to any future works that he might put out. With all that being said, I rate this book 5 out of 5.

I got his book because I enjoyed "Have a Nice Day" and "Foley is Good", and I figured this would be pretty much the same. WRONG! I took it out of the box and decided to read just a couple pages to get the feel of the book, and finished it 4 hrs later. Foley does some great character development, and at some point, he makes you feel sorry for almost everybody in the story. The book manages to be funny, disturbing, sad, and hopeful all at the same time. I just hope other people don't pass on this book, thinking that it's just another "wrasslin'" book, because they will miss out on something wonderful.
THANKS MICK!!

Read and finished in a day. I knew the book was going to be good. Throughout the novel's beginning I thought this was going to be the same kind of fare found in his Have a Nice Day. It was pretty funny and self-deprecating (to the main character that is). But as I delved further and further into the story of Tietam Brown I found something far more interesting. The critics have been surprised at the violence found in this novel...but it's really no different than any other young adult novel that I've read (and I've read many as a high school teacher). And as all the events and different character lines meet in a crescendo the reader finds a troubled man on the verge of something greater. I was drawn to Andy's honesty (something that's hard to find in this world) and rooted for him whenever he stood up for himself, something that doesn't happen enough in fiction. The only drawback that I found in the writing was that it seemed everything needed more than one adjective. But Foley has an outstanding knack for pegging what people would really be thinking and how they would speak. I really hope that Foley sees past any poor reviews (probably from fans who only want wrestling) and gives writing another go. This wrestling fan really thinks he'll only get better with each manuscript.

First off, I love Mick Foley. I bought this book at his book signing in Arlington, VA, and he was great. I rushed right home and started reading it. I didn't mind the violence. I didn't mind the kinky sex. The characters were memorable, and more than that, they seemed real. Almost too real. They grew and grew on me. But as I got closer to the end of this book, I started to feel sick. Foley has managed to capture the cruelty of high school life better than ANY other author I have ever read. I completely connected with his characters, and I could not put this book down. And the sheer torture that he puts his protagonist through, it was like watching the Rock hit Mankind 14 times over the head with a steel chair. I am not knocking Foley or his writing, the writing is great, but with everything he put me through, I felt like the emotional payoff at the end wasn't enough. It takes a lot for a book or movie to upset me like this, I don't think it's happened since I saw The World According to Garp when I was way too young to be watching a movie like that. I'm glad I read it, and I hope that there is a short story someday that shows us a HAPPY, middle aged Andy Brown. He deserves to be happy. And I would definatly read another of Foley's books. But I don't think I could read this one again, it would be too painful. Mick, there is a reason they call you the Hardcore Legend.