Gorilla Suit: My Adventures in Bodybuilding [Hardcover]

Bob Paris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1997

This is the first-ever honest, behind-the-scenes look into the world of professional bodybuilding and what the actual life of a bodybuilder is like. Paris shows us the heart of the competition, explains what drives these athletes to push their bodies to the limits, and beyond, and discusses the price bodybuilders pay for this perfection, which includes the use of dangerous growth drugs.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Bob Paris became famous as the first openly gay Mr. Universe and grew even more famous when he and Rob Jackson, his lover at the time, published Straight from the Heart, a memoir of their life together. Paris has now gone solo with Gorilla Suit. A cross between a personal memoir and a cultural history of bodybuilding, Gorilla Suit details Paris's desire to radically change his body, what that meant to him as a gay man living in a homophobic culture, and his decision to leave the sport once he discovered how seductive its destructive qualities were. Gorilla Suit is not an emotionally wrought literary memoir, or even a tell-all exposé; rather, it is a well-written, perceptive, and ultimately joyful story of a gay man's discovery of what it means to love his body.

From Library Journal

Until recently, bodybuilders have gotten less respect than Rodney Dangerfield. They use diet, exercise, and drugs to sculpt their bodies into improbable masses of muscles. Being in contest condition used to make Paris (Natural Fitness, Warner Books, 1996) feel like a "little boy walking around in a gorilla suit." Yet in 1994 he contemplated coming out of retirement and returning to competition. To draw us into his world, he uses the story of how he became a bodybuilder and discusses the current state of the sport. Paris's work is both an insider's look at a unique subculture and a firsthand account of how a suicidal gay teenager from a dysfunctional family turned himself into Mr. America. This belongs in most sports and biography collections.?Terry Jo Madden, Boise State Univ. Lib., Id.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312168551
• ISBN-13: 978-0312168551
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #150,574 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Knowing the Truth Brings Respect, January 1, 2003

By 

Patrick W. O'Hara "taparaho" (Salt Point, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gorilla Suit: My Adventures in Bodybuilding (Hardcover)

I have never really folllowed compeitive bodybuilding, but recently decided it was time to get in shape. In my quest to transform myself I founf this book written by Bob Paris, about his journey through competitive bodybuilding, and his eventual withdrawal from it. Reading his story I have to new found respect for the sport, and most of all for him, as he turned way from the body building establishment because of value conflicts. After reading this book, I'll never be able to look at a Weider product the same way.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ex-Mr Universe Tells His Story -explosive and fascinating inside look at the bodybuilding industry, November 30, 2005

By 

Janna Jansen (Waiheke Island, New Zealand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gorilla Suit: My Adventures In Bodybuilding (Paperback)

"Gorilla Suit" is the name Bob Paris gives his set of fabulous muscles.

I really, REALLY enjoyed this book! We get the run down from Bob starting off as an awkward teenager finding the weights room in his high school gym, unused and dusty when he goes looking for a fan for a teacher. He lifts a few weights, likes the way he feels then starts training. From there we read about his trip to LA, to the 'big gyms' like World Gym and Gold's, where Arnie et al are working out. It is really is a rags to riches story, as when he first goes to LA he is sleeping in the back of his car.

Bob Paris takes on the titles of Mr LA, Mr California right up to his dream title, Mr Universe, the same spot Arnold Schwartzenegger occupied.

Most interesting in this book is Bob's struggle with Joe Weider -apparently the man, his companies and IFBB (international Federation of Body Building) were all inter-related and competitions quite political. Bodybuilders survived on endorsement contracts from supplement companies, and at the time Weider's companies had a monopoly on the industry and bodybuilders. Amazingly too, most bodybuilders took copious amounts of drugs and steroids, until I read this book I naively had no idea.

And Bob's story is personal too, his struggle with the discipline of maintaining his 'gorilla suit', relationships and being true to himself in an industry that isn't -is fascinating.

Definitely a keeper.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Suit ROCKS!, March 14, 2001

By 

rand (Northern CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gorilla Suit: My Adventures In Bodybuilding (Paperback)

We've all had lives that sometimes are a bit different. Bob Paris has written about his, and how he was able to accomplish his achievements in his personal life as well as in the bodybuilding world. When it became clear that because of Bob's sexual preferance he would never be allowed to reign in the bodybuilding world, the man still had enough awareness of himself to not hide his beliefs. Yes, it cost him in the competitive world of sports but, as this book proves, it made him a better person for acknowledging his beliefs and not trying to hide them and become what everyone in the sport wanted him to be. So many have hidden what they believe. Paris had the guts (and he paid the cost) of not jumping on the bandwagon, but, instead, sticking with his beliefs for himself.