From Booklist
Sharing a title with Tyson’s limited-run one-man Broadway show (soon to air on HBO), this outspoken autobiography simultaneously confirms many of our preconceptions about the celebrity boxer and smashes some of them. Although he came out of poverty and family strife, and although he was following a criminal path at a very early age (he was robbing houses when he was still a preteen and sent to a state reformatory at age 12), and although schooling took a backseat to his fighting career (which also started when he was very young), Tyson does not come across as the semiliterate thug he’s so often represented to be. Most readers are familiar with his tumultuous life and career—the bizarre behavior in the ring, the sordid behavior out of it—but what’s most surprising about the book is the introspection and self-awareness displayed by this self-proclaimed “trailer park nigga.” Leaving aside the question of how much of the actual writing was done by coauthor Sloman—who’s collaborated on several other noteworthy books, including a couple with Howard Stern—it’s clear that the voice is Tyson’s: it’s raw and profane but also smart and witty. Different people have different opinions of Tyson, but he seems to know who he is, and he appears to be OK with that. A fascinating and frequently surprising autobiography. --David Pitt
Review
Praise for UNDISPUTED TRUTH
“A masterpiece … grimly tragic on one page, laugh-out-loud funny on the next, and unrelentingly vulgar and foul-mouthed. Reading Tyson's memoir is like watching a Charles Dickens street urchin grow up to join Hunter S. Thompson on a narcotics-filled road trip — with the ensuing antics captured on video by assorted paparazzi.” –Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times
“Undisputed Truth is raw, powerful and disturbing—a head-spinning take on Mr. Tyson's life…Unlike other sports memoirists, he doesn't pull punches, offering up slashing comments on people who were once close to him. His narrative reminds us of just how far he has come from his rough beginnings, and, in a way, how close he remains to them. He had a punch like a thunderbolt from Zeus, but there have been a lot of big bangers in boxing; Mike Tyson's came with a pulsating story line like few others.” --Gordon Marino, Wall Street Journal
“Parts of [Undisputed Truth] read like a real-life Tarantino movie. Parts read like a Tom Wolfe-ian tour of wildly divergent worlds: from the slums of Brooklyn to the high life in Las Vegas to the isolation of prison…. Mr. Tyson’s idiosyncratic voice comes through clearly on the page here — not just his mix of profane street talk and 12-step recovery language, cinematic descriptions of individual fights and philosophical musings, but also his biting humor and fondness for literary and historical references that run the gamut from Alexandre Dumas to Tolstoy to Lenin to Tennessee Williams…. A genuine effort by a troubled soul to gain some understanding of the long, strange journey that has been his life.” –Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“A hefty autobiography that might be the most soul baring book of its genre ever written … a fascinating look into a life that up until now had already been well chronicled … It’s raw and profane … but it is also quite funny.”—Associated Press
“Undisputed Truth, which is, without a doubt, one of the grittiest and most harrowing memoirs I’ve ever read.” –Flavorwire
“Most readers are familiar with [Tyson’s] tumultuous life and career—the bizarre behavior in the ring, the sordid behavior out of it—but what’s most surprising about the book is the introspection and self-awareness displayed … it’s raw and profane but also smart and witty … A fascinating and frequently surprising autobiography.”—Booklist
“
Undisputed Truth, is the American dream writ large in raw detail: think
Citizen Kane scripted by the writing team of
The Wire…. [it] has a great American novel feel to it… Tyson could easily be a Tom Wolfe or Norman Mailer creation.” –Austin Collings,
New Statesman “[A] lively mixture of a memoir.” –Joyce Carol Oates,
New York Review of Books “Tyson was ever practised at delivering the early killer blow; and so it is with this gripping and indecently enthralling autobiography….Tyson always had a way with words – although much of the credit for this book must go to his ghostwriter Larry “Ratso” Sloman, who not only makes Tyson’s life read like an Elmore Leonard thriller, but gifts him with considerable self-awareness and a memorably pithy turn of phrase….recounted in gripping, punch-by-punch detail in prose pungent with the reek of blood, sweat and petroleum jelly.” –Mick Brown,
The Telegraph (UK)
“Thrilling…addictive…Sloman brings Tyson's voice springing off the page with its often hilarious combo of street and shrink, pimp profanity and the ‘prisony pseudo-intellectual modern mack rap’ of the autodidact.” –Geoff Dyer,
The Guardian (UK)
See all Editorial Reviews