Thousand and One Night Stands: The Life of Jon Vincent [Paperback]

H. A. Carson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: 1st Book Library (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0759637946
• ISBN-13: 978-0759637948
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 0.6 x 5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #764,560 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars a train wreck of a story. . . . September 5, 2005

By Claude Greenmount

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

. . . and like a train wreck it's horrible, it's awful, you wish you'd never seen it-- and you can't look away.
The book is made up almost entirely of transcriptions of Jeffrey Vickers' (AKA Jon Vincent) taped statements and don't seem to be edited much. It is very 'stream of consciousness' and at times difficult to follow, even though the editor laid it out (as much as he could) in chronological order. Jeff is brutally honest at times, and at other times (at least self-) deceptive, but through it all, he hammers home his one message: stay away from drugs.
The casual tone in which he describes incredible debaucheries (the description of one of his copraphiliac 'clients' will make most readers phsyically ill) actually heightens the horrors of his drug addiction. Here was a man blessed with looks, an incredible physique, athletic ability, charm, and intelligence (not the kind of intelligence that could have sent rockets into space or composed a symphony, but certainly he was no dummy) and he squandered it all, quite literally, all of it.
The censoring of genitalia in the photos actually seems unnecessary and in some ways makes the photos even seedier.
Personally I would have liked a bit more input from those who knew Jeffrey (and his alter-ego Jon) and more of an epilogue-- what happened to Jeffrey after death? Was he mourned by anyone? Where was he laid to rest? What became of his only son? On the other hand, the stark and austere finale of the book resonates very powerfully-- Jon is living, talking to us, exhorting us, begging us, and then suddenly-- he's gone. Someone who might have been a star athlete, who might have inspired others as athletes can do, must instead, at BEST, hope for 'cautionary example' status in death. Jeff Vickers is no hero. But maybe his story might keep some other disaffected young and confused gay man from selling his beauty and seeking escape from the pain of his own personal hell on earth through drugs and parties.

65 of 72 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book about a major figure in erotic films December 17, 2001

By Geoffrey J. Graham

Format:Paperback

A truly excellent biography.
Jon Vincent was handsome, driven and talented. He was extremely charming and seductive -- a man who could persuade nearly anyone to do nearly anything. He had the talent to succeed in major league baseball, perhaps the looks and talent to succeed in Hollywood, and was phenomenally successful as an actor in gay/bisexual adult films.
Vincent was a thrill junkie: a compulsive seeker of sexual adventure, physical danger, steroids, alcohol, cocaine and finally heroin. Heroin was stronger than he was; it took over his life and finally killed him.
H.A. Carson recounts Vincent's life. The book is a narrative: the judgements expressed are those made by Vincent himself. It is seems lurid in places, but only because certain aspects of Vincent's life were lurid. The book has photos of Vincent in his prime, which will appeal to his fans.
Heroin addiction is a cliche in our culture. Few readers will be surprised at the downward spiral of poverty, prostitution, deception, theft, arrest, futile detoxification efforts, near-fatal drug overdoses, delusion, paranoia, despair, homelessness and eventual death -- although the details are often startling and chilling.
However, there is much in this book that the average reader is not likely to know. I was unaware, for example, that a detoxifying junkie (going cold turkey) can experience 30 or more days of near-absolute insomnia. The book reveals aspects of junkie life that are odd (the Geographical theory of
sobriety), disturbing (the link between pornography, prostitution and drug addiction; the tendency for heroin addiction to spread among friends like a common cold) and very disturbing (the devastation that addicts inflict on those who love them and want to help them).
The book shows how heroin addiction is a day-by-day, night-by-night battle to stay alive. Jon Vincent was victorious in many of his daily battles; but eventually, there was always defeat and readdiction.
The book is a damned good read, a powerful anti-drug message, and also a perfect place to start for anyone curious or concerned about pornography, prostitution, drug addiction or addictive personalities in general. One bad point: it is available as a paperback only, not in hardcover (I have checked).

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A private disintegration on the public stage March 25, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Just as "Wonder Bread ..." detailed the rapid rise and just as rapid fatal fall of gay porn icon Joey Stefano, so it goes here with H.A. Carson's treatment of Jon Vincent, another gay porn actor who also crossed over into bisexual films. Endowed with the handsomeness that only billboards are made for and a body to match, Vincent used both to wrangle his way to fortune and fame (no pun). Once there, however, according to Carson, Vincent, like so many others in the apparent cut-throat adult film business, obviously found fame, money and envy either unfulling or too much to handle. Either way, heroin became Vincent's comfort, and his business of sex became nothing more than a mechanical, emotionless state of being with the hope for love being so elusive as not even to be dreamable. With the heroin, Vincent went the only way that an addiction goes if not arrested: downward, in all its poverty, isolation, maybe well-intentioned but half-hearted attempts at sobriety and, sometimes mercifully, death. In the end, Vincent lost his battle to heroin, and his story in this book comes across more as one of decline and fall in a public profession and the torment of heroin addiction and less a psyco-biography to explain the reason for Vincent's (and others') self-destruction. Is it the nature of the adult business that directs its performers to drug dependency, or is it an already-present void in the souls of its performers who seek fulfillment in a physically intimate profession? We don't get the answers here, but Carson's book remains an important warning that the demons of a soul in torment will almost always unleash their lethal poison from which few emerge. It is a disturbing but important read, and it might be warning us to pay heed to the caution in the wind.