As someone who never bought into the anti-substance abuse Just Say No mantra, this book appealed to me if, for no other reason than the Shadenfreude that I often feel while reclining on the couch with a highball and delving into someone else's Trainwreck Memoir. Dry, A Million Little Pieces, Drinking: A Love Story--I've read them all, clicking my tongue at the disastrous folly unfolding on the pages before me and finding an odd solace in the really grim parts, thinking to myself, "I've done a lot of bad things, but at least I've never done that. Or that. Or that! Etc."
In my experience, these memoirs follow a typical arc: Young Innocent enters into a self-destructive fun house, tells harrowing stories of what he saw on the inside and describes how it almost killed him. Eventually, he has an illuminating epiphany and emerges back into the light, a wiser (and usually unbearably smug) being who will go on to lead a life of unbridled success now that his demons are behind him and that pesky monkey is off his back.
This book, thank God, isn't like that. It does follow an arc similar to the one described above--a young man moves to the Big City with dreams of cinematic stardom but then finds The City a less than congenial place and he is forced to make several sacrifices to his integrity along the way in order to survive. He goes through an addiction hell, and eventually does emerge better off. Sort of.
The first inkling that this book will be something different comes early on when the author recounts his experience as a nineteen year-old contestant on that sad daytime perennial, The Price is Right. This opening scene sets the tone for the book (wistfully reminiscent, gently self-mocking, and slightly seedy) and establishes the dominant theme that will echo through it: the idea that nothing is ever quite as glamorous or perfect as it appears on the surface. As examples of this, we see the game show icon Bob Barker, but are then given a description of his thick pancake make-up and bad dye job; we hear how the author imagines himself as the sexy leading male, but then watch as the director of fried chicken commercial casts him for his geeky, gangly appearance and repeatedly yells at him to look more like "an ostrich". This dichotomy continues throughout the book as Our Hero finds success, not as a screen actor, but as a cocaine-addicted phone sex worker. The story, particularly early on, with its portrayal of a seamy Los Angeles, populated with desperate characters who all want to be on top, and fail miserably trying to get there, is reminiscent of Nathanael West's, The Day of the Locust. See also: It Never Rains In Southern California, Do You Know the Way to San Jose, and even Message to Michael--all of which came into my head while I was reading this book.
Things get increasingly grim as the story goes on, most notably when the AIDS virus emerges from behind the curtain and infects the author and most of his friends. In a more conventional memoir, it would be at this point that you'd expect an epiphany--a moment where he'd change his errant ways, and move toward the light. But this story, like most of the world outside of fiction, isn't quite so neat and tidy. The author remains self-involved and shallow, engages in behavior that is destructive to himself and others, often does and says the wrong thing, makes bad decisions, is sometimes whiney, and seems, at times, hopelessly mired in a heap of trivial externals. But what saves the story, and keeps the reader eagerly turning pages, is the author's self-deprecating humor. Repeatedly throughout the book he inflates his ego only to later stab it with a pin. This is often very funny to watch (as when he is describing a drunken roll in the hay with Rock Hudson, or his disastrous television interview in the wake of Magic Johnson's AIDS announcement), but it is just as often heartbreaking, as we witness him stumbling and fumbling along, trying to reach some goal that even he doesn't seem sure of. In spite of those missteps, the author is always moving forward, trying to honestly assess his shortcomings. And it is those fumbling attempts that are, in the end, his redemption; the things that enable him to finally escape the perpetual adolescence that seems to ensnare so many gay men.
