Music fans know Mickey Leigh's brother, Jeff, as Joey Ramone, one of rock's most influential, enigmatic frontmen. Mickey knew him as the big brother who offered to share his bed whenever Mickey was frightened by the monster under his own.

Mickey and Jeff were born and raised in the Forest Hills neighborhood of New York City's Queens borough. Mickey played in his first band, the Overdose of Sound, as a fifth-grader, and when he was 12, his brother Jeff produced his first studio record.

In 2001, Mickey lost his only brother to lymphatic cancer in a hospital in New York, a city that had remnants of Joey Ramone sprinkled everywhere in its DNA.

Nobody knew the Ramones singer better than Mickey Leigh, and in his new book, "I Slept With Joey Ramone: A Family Memoir" (Touchstone, $26), he skillfully reveals the humanity, tragedy and triumph behind the long-legged, leather jacket-clad rock legend.

Co-written by the man who invented the term "punk rock," Legs McNeil, "I Slept" reads like the best Ramones songs sound: honest, gritty, clearly voiced, often funny, and always engaging.

I caught Leigh and McNeil on the phone before their reading in Minneapolis this week.

Q Why do we need another Ramones book?

A "Nobody's gotten it right yet," says Leigh with a sigh. "I really wanted to get it right once and for all."

Leigh has a very real and appealing narrative voice. "I write like I speak," he explains.

According to McNeil, "You've got to be good first, and have good songs. The singer has to have a good voice. The Ramones had that from Day One. Why it's taken the rest of the world 30 years to figure it out is beyond me. Burn all those other [expletive] Ramones books."

Q Describe your process for writing this book. It's unflinching, and the voice throughout is strong, entertaining and sometimes tragic.

A "Mickey and me go way back," says McNeil, the author of "Just Kill Me: An Oral History of Punk Rock," co-founding editor of Punk magazine and senior editor for Spin. "Mickey approached me with his idea and, underneath it all, Joey was a very lovable, good guy. I had tons of stories from 'Just Kill Me,' and together and separately, we had interviewed friends, fans, family, musicians, music biz folks, enemies -- you name it, we talked to them.

"Plus," he adds, "We were both there for most of it."

"I approached it like a really, really, really long song," says Leigh, a songwriter before taking up the memoirist's pen. "Joey's musical roots were planted in our family's story, and my tears are on a lot of those pages."

Q Experiencing and writing about a pop icon, cult hero and rock star rolled into one person is tricky terrain. Experiencing him as a human being is sometimes viewed as blasphemous.

A "A lot of people have told me that they can relate to so many different aspects of this story," explains Leigh, who has written liner notes, reviews and a column (called "My Guitar Is Pregnant") for New York Waste newspaper. "I just wanted to tell the story honestly and to humanize Joey Ramone, you know, keep him grounded here on the planet Earth like the rest of us."

"I think that good books start with a good question," says McNeil, "and every one who's ever heard of, listened to or seen the Ramones has wondered 'Where did that guy [Joey Ramone] come from?'"

Q What can we expect at your event at Nick and Eddie -- it's not at a traditional reading in a book store?

A "Gift bags!" announced McNeil with delight. "And I plan to give away a Snuggie and a Shamwow! It's kind of punk rock, isn't it?"

Laurie Lindeen is a Minneapolis author and musician.