Also this issue: Land Locked Warren Rohrer kept his work earthbound. -Susan Hagen artquicks More Stuff Going On This Week... Karen E. Quinones Miller -Alex Richmond Beauty and the Beast -Debra Auspitz Summer Invitational -Lori Hill Latin Jazz: La Combinación Perfecta -Brian White Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Walter Isaacson insists Franklin’s prose is the standout among the man’s countless endeavors. -John Freeman bookquick Dispatches from the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit

July 17-23, 2003

artpicks

Mick Foley

by Maura Johnston

Tietam Brown (Knopf) is Mick Foley's first novel, but it is far from his first foray into publishing -- he's also written two chart-topping wrestling memoirs and two children's books. Told in memoir style, Tietam Brown looks back at three months in the late adolescence of the battle-scarred, outburst-prone Antietam Brown V (known as Andy). The story begins as young Andy, freshly reunited with his father (the Tietam Brown of the book's title, also known as Antietam Brown IV), is in the first throes of falling in love with a member of his high school's cheerleading squad.

While Foley's prose can, at times, be somewhat rough-hewn, he does have a knack for vivid descriptions of gore: blood, popped-out eyes (!) and a man doing nude knee bends between bouts of lovemaking (!!). Tietam Brown is not dinnertime reading, but what would you expect from a man who didn't let falling from a 16-foot-high cage, dislocating his jaw and blacking out -- twice -- stop him from finishing a match? (Yes, just one match.) The story told by Andy Brown, a high school outcast who manages to stand up to his uberjock history teacher and his girlfriend's hellfire-preaching father, is pretty damn compelling. And during a recent spate of non-wrestling WWE appearances, his charisma lit up arenas; no doubt he'll do the same on Vine Street. Foley may be one of the most fascinating debut fiction writers -- one who should have little trouble smashing through to the bestseller list.

Mick Foley, Thu., July 17, 7 p.m., free, Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341.