Fame, babes, free rent in a multimillion dollar house on Miami Beach--who wouldn't jump at the offer? Joe Patane did, and with a memoir--whose first chapter is entitled, "What Possessed Me?"--he clearly lived to regret it. As one of the cast members of MTV's The Real World, Joe had cameras tracking his every move, microphones recording his every conversation, crewmembers brandishing waivers at his every acquaintance. Considering the circumstances--and the promises extended by the jacket copy--Livin' in Joe's World isn't quite the hatchet job one might expect. In fact, Joe himself emerges from the entire experience with a number of the usual homilies about being true to oneself, making the most out of life, daring to take risks, and so on and so on. Enough already with the moral uplift, one wants to say, and tell us some more about the Mike-Michelle-waitress shower scene. Frankly, it comes as no shock to learn that MTV producers engage in creative editing or that they manipulate events to make things more entertaining for viewers; anyone who's ever watched The Real World knows it's about as "real" as an episode of Three's Company. The true appeal of Livin' in Joe's World lies elsewhere--in learning what it felt like to become a real live lab rat spinning around in a wheel. For anyone who's a closet voyeur--and who isn't?--Livin' in Joe's World exerts the same queasy fascination as the TV show itself, and once started, it's hard to put down. As for his life post-MTV, Joe's is a nice enough world, but I wouldn't want to live there. Not even for free rent. --Mary Park
Product Description
Get Real!
To Joe Patane, an outgoing, industrious graduate student from Brooklyn, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Seven strangers are selected to live rent-free in a resplendent Miami Beach house and given $50,000 to start a business together. The only catch is that every minute of their lives is to be recorded for consumption by millions of MTV viewers. In Livin' in Joe's World, Joe Patane gives the first personal account of his harrowing experiences inside and outside of the famous house.
The events in his life are familiar to fans of the show, though the full stories behind them will surprise even the most avid viewers. Find out how the show wrecked havoc on Joe's relationships with his girlfriend/fiancee, family, and friends. Were scenes staged or altered? What happened with the business and Joe's engagement plans, and how does he deal with being back in the real real world? Joe fills in the details about himself that were either too revealing, too subtle, or perhaps even too real to fit into the show's conception of his generation. For the first time, a cast member provides an inside look at this "real-life soap opera," minus the cameras and creative editing.
