Customer Reviews

Traci Lords: Underneath It All

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Traci Lords became famous or infamous, it depends how you see her situation, after she and the adult film industry were caught with their pants down. Which's isn't a bad thing in porn unless your under 18 which Traci was for most of her triple X career. So 20 years later it's not surprising that Ms. Lords revisits that dark time in her life.

The first half of the book is compelling. In it she details her young life in Ohio working class towns. It's probably no surprise that she had father issues. Her Dad was abusive and her Mom, making a series of bad decisions, dropped that deadbeat for an even sleazier deadbeat. Traci was also developing at an early age found that her sex not only brought unwanted attention, but often unwanted advances. A move to California and the drug culture combined to make the perfect storm for young Traci. By 15 she was posing as a model and by 17 she was an established porn star. After a late night FBI raid Traci and the adult industry was busted. Traci would leave the triple X fare behind and strike out as a "legitimate" actress with moderate success.

This is where the rest of the book, which chronicles her mainstream career, falters. It reads more like a resume then an autobiography. No real insights are offered after her porn career and to be honest few insights are shared before and during her porn career. Because Lords avoids many details and offers little insight into her self, we're left with a pretty non-descript depiction of her life. The first half of the books works better because the story is so compelling, but Traci makes few attempts to look inside herself and the result is stunting.

The book is also very non-sexual. This is neither good nor bad, but those looking for an erotic read will be disappointed.

I so much wanted to like this book better than I did. Clearly, Ms. Lords has led a tragic life of neglect and abuse and, more importantly, has managed to triumph over it. She seems to have reached a place in her life and career where happiness is coming to her. And she deserves it. And I wanted to cheer for her.

The problem is, her writing is just not very good. At times overwrought and flowery and at others vague to the point where I wasn't sure what was happening, her prose just wasn't equal to her own story. Her writing didn't allow me to feel the things I wanted to feel--I couldn't share her rage at the people who had done her wrong or her joys at her successes. At times, I couldn't even feel sympathy for her or interest in what was happening.

Normally, I believe strongly in people telling their own story. In this case, however, Ms. Lords might have been better served by a ghostwriter. She at least deserved a better editor who could have helped her control some of her poorer tendencies as a writer. The book does improve as it goes on but I'm afraid most people won't make it that far. That's too bad because there is a life here worth reading about.

Traci Lords' autobiography leaves out some information which would be of interest, but what is there is clear.

First, it's obvious she wrote the book herself, most likely from scattered bits of diary notes, and credit must be given because almost anyone else in her position would have had this thin thing ghosted. I say "obvious" because while the writing can at times be raw and *seemingly* honest, frank and revealing, it's also often cliche-ridden and downright grimace-inducing. Take for example, her 2-year relationship with John Enos. Enos was "the kind of guy my mother should have warned me about...an appetite for destruction...proceed at your own risk...bull in a china shop, a walk on the wild side...drank Jack and Cokes like water...life in the fast late...had seen it all" I mean, C'MON! That's all in two paragraphs of sloppy writing. Most of the book is better than THAT, but it's not literature by any means.

Second, it's clear the lady is stunningly beautiful and undeniably has drive. The book is positively filled with color and b&w photos of Traci and since we're not going to learn too much we don't already know from the text, this is one way of making up for it. As regards ambition, clearly the most obvious thing to emerge from her porn/drugs/alcohol/abuse anguish and subsequent therapy was a powerful desire to prove herself as an actress, model, singer and a worthy person, and to her credit, over the years she has built up an enviable career. It could not have been easy.

What is missing from the book however, despite the years of therapy she describes, is a connection between the porn star past and her present. Lords writes often that some in Hollywood wanted nothing to do with her professionally after her bust, but she misses the point that some DID, using her notoriety to help sell movies or lingerie or clothes. To this day, having decided to use her "Traci Lords" name personally and professionally, she is benefitting and capitalizing on the sizzle that goes with it. Nothing wrong with that - this is show business, and she's not the only one selling associations with sex - but it's the fact. As Traci she has gotten a good deal further than she could have as Nora.

Additionally, while no doubt the whole porn time took place in a drug-feuled haze and much of interest might have been lost down the memory-hole, there are plenty of loose ends that ought to have been wrapped up, but aren't. Aside from death threats from some (who?) in the porn industry in the wake of the bust, was she or anyone else actually charged with anything? Anyone sentenced at all? Did her mother's appearance at all these trials make any difference to anyone? How about some kind of look back?

The book is definitely not a tell-all about the porn industry - read Jerry Butler's book for that. It is the here's-my-life-so-far story of a messed up girl from a messed up family from Steubenville (also home of Dean Martin, who likewise did reasonably well in Hollywood), trying hard to show us that she's gonna make it after all.

This started off to be a very good autobiography. A young girl, abused, and neglected, coerced into a sordid, degrading business, the center of a huge controversy, and triumphantly turning her life around. But somewhere in between all this, I was looking for some type of growth, healing, self-discovery, which would include accepting responsibility for her own choices and actions and being candid about those choices and actions. In telling of her early childhood and the abuse, poverty, and neglect she suffered, Traci seemed very candid and open. Then when it got off into her entry into pornography, everything became cloudy, glossed over, or somebody else's fault, and it remained that way until the end. At no point, even during all her years of psychotherapy and healing and self-discovery, did she ever admit any wrongdoing or take any responsibility.

I do believe Traci was victimized, but I also believe that at some point she began victimizing herself. She blames the porn industry for exploiting her, but she was the one who presented a fake ID. She was the one who was in control of her last released flick, yet she allowed it to be released and collected royalties off it. If she was so used and abused, why would she allow the one movie in her control to be released? Because the porn industry was a choice that she made, a choice that she profitted off of, and continues to still. She may have been coerced into the busines as a young teenager, but she wasn't forced to stay in it. She chose to stay in it.

Like many people, Traci made bad decisions in her life, but what I was looking for was a more deep, insightful look into why, and also a more clear picture of what turned her life around. To me, this book is a lot of finger pointing, excuses, and tooting her own horn.

I bought this book because I am a professor of psychology, and I teach a course in human sexuality. Occasionally, I'll pick up a biography of this type to get an insight into a world that I know little about. In this case, I have to admit to a bit of prurient interest as well. I was an adolescent when Traci Lords was starring in pornographic films and magazine layouts, and it was difficult not to be aware of her notoriety. Regretably, her potentially revelatory volume was neither revelatory nor very interesting. I found myself skimming over page after page of hand-wringing and self-absorbed wailing interspersed with rhetorical question after rhetorical question. Frankly, I grew weary of it all. Her accusations against her tormentors garnered little sympathy from me, because she did not successfully convince me that she could not have walked away into another, safer, life had she wanted to. I was left with the impression that this book was yet another attempt to market her notoriety. I'm just sorry that I fell for it.

Traci Lords has written another celebrity memoir designed to let people know how hard it is to be a star. In Underneath It All, Lords paints herself as a victim who had no control over her life from an early age and was therefore led astray into a world filled with drugs and sex. She does not, however, accept culpability for her actions and the part she played in rising to stardom because of her infamous stint as a "porn princess." This isn't to say that her autobiography should focus on her career as a teenage porn star and go into graphic detail, but that it is necessary to acknowledge that without those experiences she most likely wouldn't have achieved the commercial success that followed. To paint herself as an innocent victim is an exercise in shameless self-promotion and this book lacks the sort of depth necessary to feel any sort of emotion toward the author besides hostility for being fooled into thinking she might actually be candid and open. I did not enjoy this book and felt like the time spent reading it was wasted.

This book REALLY wasn't what I expected. I expected a book about the inner workings of the porn industry, but instead what I got was a book length justification of why we shouldn't hate Traci Lords because she used to do drugs and made sex films. We are supposed to overlook the fact that she CHOSE to do drugs, screw on film, and act like an imbecile.

Come on, I mean we ALL make mistakes and a lot of people have a very dysfunctional family background, including me, but we don't all act out our problems through drugs and sex.

While everyone has the right to forgiveness, after all Christ did die on the cross for our sins -- what bothers me most about this book is that she never REALLY owns up to the fact that she took drugs and was a sex worker because she WANTED TO DO IT. She has a justification for going out and staying stoned, living with idiotic guys, etc. Yeah, I can understand why she did all those things -- but please, just own up the fact that YOU did it -- and leave it at that.

The whole book has a VERY defensive tone and was obviously written to try and make her "legit" in the eyes of the film industry. Please Traci, just tell your story realistically and be done with it!

And she's not a great actress and singer anyway, if you want my opinion! Her porn roles really got her where she is, so just admit it and move on!

Don't waste your money on this one!

I think--if I met Traci Lords--I would like and admire her.. Unfortunately, I don't get to meet her in her autobiography. Her story should be compelling (but told by herself, isn't); she deserves credit for her talent, her guts, her success (but not for this book). It was almost halfway through the book before I heard her memorable, honest, human voice: "What would my tombstone say? Here lies a cocksucker?" And then that voice went away.

I wasn't obsessed with knowing every detail of every adult film she starred in as an underage teen. (Although I was hoping for an occassional rise.) I became more obsessed--and more disappointed when it was left unexplored--to learn how she could overcome addiction, how she could steel herself to a unhappy past which NO ONE would allow her to forget, how her important therapy worked, how success could seed in her life, how important relationships would continue to fail. . .I wanted to know something about the insides of this valiant, recovered woman. Instead, I learned she had a white cat and an expensive Japanese dinner table. . .

Try again, Ms. Lord; your story remains untold.

I saw Traci Lords on Oprah and was amazed that she was an ex-porn star. She was so articulate, pretty and smart. That made me read the book,to know how she got involved and how she got out. Her story was very moving and my heart went out to her. Unfortunately the last third of the book gives tedious information how to make it as an actress in Hollywood,which was too extensive and too generic.I wanted to know what happened to her mother & sisters she used to be so close with and in the last 2 pages it got quickly all wrapped up. Therefore I was a little disappointed, because the details that made it her particular story were missing in the end and that really would have been "underneath it all" for me.

If you are looking for a sexually graphic depiction of Traci's life or sexually graphic details of the porn industry this book is not for you. While Traci inadvertantly propelled the porn industry into mainstream bringing the industry a financial windfall, she did not prosper. A product of rape and child molestation Traci Lords finds herself in an adult world of porn, sex, drugs, and manipulation. While this heartbreaking book goes into great detail about this aspect of her life, it is only the beginning. She is able to excape the porn industry and drugs and eventually marries and becomes a successful TV actress, movie actress, singer, model and now author. While the porn industry has no love for her and many porn fans only have lust for her, I think anyone who reads this book will get to know a very intimate side of this person and see a great strength in someone who has been able to over come a great adversity when the odds were against her. As I read this book, I found myself drawn into her world and was left wanting to reach in and pull this poor girl from an awful fate. Fortunately she was able to do this for herself but only after just about everyone she came into contact with her, used her and tossed her aside. Today she is a child advocate and works to save those like herself. This is a great book and would recommend this to anyone.