Right off the bat, I must say that I was prejudiced against publishing this book.

In the mid-1980s, Vikki LaMotta, who was a good friend of mine, asked me if I would write her biography. At the time I was busy working on a novel and I told him I couldn’t do it. Then he asked me if I knew Tom Hauser. I replied that I knew him a bit since we were both members of the Boxing Writers Association. I told him that although I never read any of his writing, he had a good reputation in the business. I advised him to hire an attorney to handle the contract to write the book. She said yes and that she had the final say on whether the book would be published.

We had dinner together a couple of times a month, and she told me that she had started working with Hauser on the book, mostly at his apartment in Battery Park City in midtown Manhattan. When the first draft of the book was finished, she was not happy with the outcome of the book and ended the project. As far as I can remember, this was in 1987, or possibly 1988.

In 2005, Vikkie LaMotta died after undergoing heart surgery, and with the permission of her surviving family members, the book was released in 2009. Of course I had to buy it, to see if it would do justice to a woman who was good. friend of mine for a decade.

For reasons beyond Hauser, who is a good writer, for me the book fails. She is never as interesting in the book as she was in real life.

But like I said above, this was probably a story that would be best left untold anyway.

It is just my opinion.