New Mantle 'Inventive Memoir' called 'porn' and 'vile'

Thought this might be of interest to you folks, from Publishers Weekly:

Judith Regan is at it again. Fresh off the controversy of the canceled If I Did It by O.J. Simpson, Regan Books is planning to publish yet another title featuring an American sports icon—and again the public might not stand for it. 7: The Mickey Mantle Novel, described by its author, Peter Golenbock, as an "inventive memoir" and by others who have seen the galley as something tantamount to pornography, is likely to evoke charges of bad taste and questionable ethics when it is published in March in a 60,000-copy first printing. It may even occasion claims of libel, according to publishing lawyers.
Two media insiders who have read the galley, each of whom asked not to be identified by name, used words like "porn," "debased," "exploitative" and "vile" to describe the book's contents. One of them said the book left him "speechless."

The rest.... http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6399499.html?nid=2286

(If you have to register, lemme know, I'll post the rest.)

An excerpt from that article:

No one asked me, but yuck.

 

Oh my God.

As if Golenbock could be any more of a hack.

At least the subtitle's not If He Did Her: How Mickey Mantle Would Have Screwed Marilyn Monroe.

 

I should have posted this part above:

 

You're calling Golden-book, er Golenbock, a hack?
You are being too kind.

 

Golenbeck is Kitty Kelley with more testoterone.

 

I cannot wait to read this. This looks fascinating. I don't want to read a gushy biography of some great ballplayer - that's been done. This is new and interesting. Bring it on...

 

Peter Golenbock is a joke. I remember some book he wrote 20 years ago, I think it was about the Mets, that I tried to read. There were so many misspelled names that I quit. I wondered how someone could be so incompetent yet get a book published. Now I chuckle at everything I see with his name attached. Perhaps I should start vomiting instead.

 

Ditto. Golenbock did book on NC State and Valvano after Valvano got canned. Not that Jimmy V was a saint, but the book was a complete hatchet job. I remember doing a review on it and counting up the factual errors, misspelling, etc. I interviewed the author and asked him about how if there were so many mistakes made how could the rest of the reporting be trusted? It was a short interview.

 

Golden-book once did a Yankees book that I believe had more than 300 factual/spelling errors.

 

I went to camp with the guy, John Simonds, who ratted out Valvano.

 

He did a book on Davey Johnson that, in one quick read, had 98 inaccuracies. He got names wrong and dates totally wrong. As one example I'll never forget -- which points out the need for a good editor -- he quotes Johnson talking about prospects in the Mets organization that he had hopes for and one of the names listed was Mars. Well, I couldn't figure that one out until I realized Davey's southern accent pronouced "Myers," as in Randy, as "Mars."

So read this one if you want to be titillated but remember 50 percent of it is probably pure bullshit or, worse yet, inaccurate.

 

Given the posts on this thread, it seems that an 'inventive memoir' would be the perfect vehicle for a writer who doesn't worry about facts or documentation.