A novel approach: best-selling author and hardcore icon Mick Foley is back in bookstores, this time with a work of fiction

Wrestling Digest, Oct, 2003 by Jim Varsallone

WHILE HIS CHILDREN LAY FAST asleep across the way, Mick Foley worked in the little room above his garage for two year--seated in a special chair from a loyal fan--and penned his first novel, "Tietam Brown." The novel is a work far different than his previous scribe offerings, which included a pair of memoirs and a couple of children's books.

"Some people ask if it's a kids' book because they see the cover has some bright primary colors and figure it's a kids' book," Foley says. "The first thing I do is strongly urge them not to show it to any younger kids. There is some stuff in the book that is out there."

"Tietam Brown" tells the story of Antietam (Andy) Brown, named for the great-great-great-grandfather who died on the Civil War battlefield. Andy, 17, is the veteran of a violent boyhood, having been locked up in the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center for killing a teenager who attempted to assault him. Brown speaks in the voice at once innocent And too knowing for his age.

"It is something I came up with a good year before I started writing it. I got the idea to do a father-son story after seeing James Coburn and Nick Nolte in the Movie 'Affliction,'" Foley says. "I came out of that thinking it was a really strong story but also thinking it was James Coburn's character was such a miserable guy that there was really never a chance to think he had any decency in him.

"I thought it would be interesting to write a story about a father who really battles with his own demons and eventually doesn't make the right choices."

The father character can be viewed in many ways as a stand-in for Foley's former WWE boss Vince McMahon and the creative forces of character development for WWE TV programming. In essence, Foley created and developed his own WWE character and translate him into novel form.

"There is a couple of little things in the book as far as the romance goes that draw from my own experiences--not the first bedroom scene in the book-but it is a new character," Foley says. "What I tried to do was remember what it was like to be 17 and feel like I didn't quite fit in, and then from there I put this character in some very difficult situations. I think the character is a likeable kid who would make the reader feel for him an therefore really get caught up in this world he encounters."

Since semi-retiring from his grueling yet spirited first night job--pro wrestling--Foley says he needed to do something with his time and writing has just come naturally to him.

"The hardest part of writing is trying to convince my family it's a real job. Since I do most of my writing at night, my daughter thought I was a bum," Foley says. "She saw me looking through this manuscript I just completed that hopefully will be out next year. She looked at it and said, 'Wow, 498 pages. That's a lot of work.' I said, 'Honey, what did you chink dad did when you went to sleep?' She just said,. 'I didn't think you did anything.'

"She's kind of stopped pushing me into the field of anesthesiology and kind grudgingly accepted that her dad is a pen-and-paper guy. They are very happy that I don't have to take the bumps and bruises. My son wanted to go to [Madison Square] Garden with me [for "Raw"], but I couldn't let it happen because I couldn't have him walking around backstage of the Garden going 'No dad. You can't fall down the stairs.'

"He's very concerned, and I think they're glad I'm not wrestling very often, but at the same time, I think it meant a lot to them to see dad back out there being cheered and being honored in that way. My two-year-old son doesn't have a clue. He just thinks every father has their own action figure."

Foley's wrestling career was top notch, a legendary, Hall of Fame body of work. He also boasts some pretty good credentials as an author. His autobiographies "Have A Nice Day" and "Foley Is Good" both hit No. 1 on The New York Times Best-Seller List. His children's books "Halloween Havoc" and "Christmas Chaos" also sold well.

"Tietam Brown" marks Foley's first foray into a higher echelon of literary grace. His imagination, creativity, and ability to formulate an energetic tale about a fictional character prove his worth on the book-making scene.

"When I conceived the idea, it was a story about revenge," Foley says. "I originally planned it with the idea that this poor kid was manipulated from the very beginning of the book--everything that happened would be a predetermined manipulation.

"Following September 11, when I sat down to write the book just a couple of weeks later, I just started writing and felt there was a lot more emotion and genuinely flowing characters rather than smooth, manipulates ones."

After seven years in prison, Brown is free and at a crossroads, trying to make a fresh start and to fit into the life of Conestoga High School in a small upstate New York town. He now lives with his father-absent from his life since he was a newborn. His father is certainly charismatic. He is also crude, apparently addicted to bodybuilding and beer swilling, and a womanizer. He has no visible job and no known past.