THE GOOD SON

THE GOOD SON is a remarkable story of victory, loss, and redemption. A book about two men—father and son—both boxing legends called “Boom Boom” Mancini--that traces the arc of their relationship to each other and to boxing.

The year was 1919 and the place was Youngstown Ohio. The Volstead act was passed and Lenny Mancini was born. The drama and tension of the Prohibition years would play a big role in shaping the life of the young man, who was a hard-nosed, undersized tough guy, with fists the size of baseball mitts and who would fight anybody. As the men he grew up with made their livings through nefarious means, Lenny climbed the amateur boxing ranks, building a solid reputation in the dusty, sweaty ring of Brooklyn's Broadway Arena. But his career was cut short, just as it was building to its apex - he was inducted into the Army 11 days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Another shell, this time in Germany, finished his career for good - he suffered injuries that an athlete could not recover from, though he tried to revive his career after being honorably discharged. His boxing dreams dashed, Lenny still managed to avoid the life of crime that was simply the way in Youngstown in the 60s, and he and his wife gave birth to two kids - Ellen and Ray, who was born in 1961. It was on Ray that Lenny fixed his new hope: to see him become a champion of the ring. The Good Son is not only the story of the relationship between a man and his father, but also about a boxer's relationship with the ring and the dream. It's a gritty, dramatic account of the sweaty, dusty rings of the 1940s and the glamorous, flashy televised fights of the 1980s, tracing the arcs of the very different careers of a father and son. The narrative reaches its climax with the tragic 1982 fight between the young Ray Mancini and his challenger, the Korean Duk Koo Kim. Mancini pummeled his opponent in 14 rounds, a seemingly proud victory - but, after the fight, Kim suffered from brain injuries from which he died. Mancini fell into a deep depression after that fight. For this book, Mark Kriegel traveled with Mancini to Korea to meet Kim's son, and their interaction provided a moving ending to what had been a sad tale. Mark Kriegel is the author of two New York Times bestselling sports biographies: Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich (Free Press, 2007) and Namath: A Biography (Viking, 2004). He is the national columnist for FOXSports.com. He was a long-time sportswriter for the New York Daily News and has contributed to many national publications. A Swarthmore graduate, he currently lives in Santa Monica, California.