XXX-Communicated: A Rebel Without A Shul (Paperback)

~ Luke Ford (Author)
Key Phrases: hee hee, porn girls, contract girls, Luke Ford, Dennis Prager, Gene Ross (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

When Luke Ford, the youngest son of a heretical Seventh Day Adventist theologian, converted to Judaism in 1992, he burned his pornography collection, but his curiosity about the forbidden did not disappear in the flames. In the fall of 1995, Ford began investigating the San Fernando Valley's hardcore industry. On his website www.lukeford.com, he broke stories about HIV-infection, Mafia control, and pay-for-placement porn journalism.

As his name began showing up in the newspapers and his face on television, Ford received an ultimatum from his rabbi--give up investigating porn or give up the synagogue.

XXX-Communicated: A Rebel Without a Shul explores the tensions between freedom and friends, faith and reason, reality and religion.

About the Author

Luke Ford published his first book in 1999: A History of X: 100 Years of Sex in Film. He's appeared on Entertainment Tonight and 60 Minutes. He operates www.lukeford.net.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (June 23, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595318940
• ISBN-13: 978-0595318940
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,644,250 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Luke Ford wants you to hate him. Guess what? By the end of the book you do!, March 4, 2006

By	Joshua D. Bloom - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I honesty was really looking forward to reading Luke Ford's book. A few months ago I stumbled upon his website and found an unusual cross between writing about porn and kink and writing about Jews; mostly about Jews and porn and Jews and kink. From the website I realized I wasn't going to always agree with Luke, but as someone who takes these subjects seriously and the interplay between the two, I was very interested in his personal story.

The beginning of XXX-Communicated: A Rebel Without A Shul starts off with Luke tell about his childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and his departure from his family's Seventh Day Adventist (and then own church) devoutness to his conversion to Orthodox Judaism.

Luke comes across as completely unlikable. He seems determined to make everyone hate him, but then doesn't understand why everyone does hate him. Perhaps he is looking for pity, but he comes across as the most unsympathetic character I have ever come across. He is attention seeking, misogynistic, conservative valued, hypocritical, deceitful, and prone to inappropriate behavior. It becomes apparent why no one seems to want him after reading the book: not his one-time friends, not women, not the pornography industry, not synagogues.

I did honestly buy the book excited about the notion of a Jewish rebel who challenged the mainstream and tried to be a good Jew while miring in the banality of porn and kink. I have truly never been more disappointed with a book than this.

I was left not liking Luke Ford, not feeling sorry or pity for him, but rather actually despising him and thinking that he was a pathetic attention driven individual.

Worst off, he comes across as a lousy reporter and an incredibly bad writer. His book is hard to follow. The array of people who hate him or who are his enemies blur after a while and they become indistinguishable. The writing degenerates as the reader gets further in. There is no redemption moment at the end of the book. Luke comes across as no better a person and no better of a Jew than he did a decade earlier in the book.

I believe that this is probably the worst book I have ever read. My recommendation would be to avoid this book. Do not buy it; do not read it.

4.0 out of 5 stars interesting - not what you think it might be, July 8, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: XXX-Communicated: A Rebel Without A Shul (Hardcover)

This is not a lurid tale about the porn industry, which really is more of the backdrop here. It's an honest, candid story of a man facing many issues of faith that are ignored by most people today. Mr. Ford presents his story honestly and candidly. My only fault with the book is that the writer of autobiography should involve the reader more; here, however, Mr. Ford writes about himself with considerable detachment, so we don't get a sense of what he was feeling or thinking at some pivotal moments. He often uses dry reportage about private moments when a more personal recollection seemed necessary. I look forward to more of Mr. Ford's writing.

13 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Rebel Without A Clue, July 15, 2004

By	Nick Roven (Santa Monica, CA) - See all my reviews

So, Mr. Ford is ousted from one temple after another for his refusal to give up his porn gossip website. As it should be. Ford wants to be an Orthodox Jew (probably because in the religion he finds reinforcement for his misogyny and bigotry)and the religious code he embraces forbids this. Where's the drama in that? It's not as if Ford is challenging the religious code. He simply wants to have it both ways, like a petulant child.

If Ford were half the writer/journalist he thinks he is he could easily have turned his back on porn gossip and started writing on any number of subjects and the rabbis would have smiled upon him. But he found a niche for his monosyllabic style of writing on the Internet, where the demand for stylized, intelligent writing is very low indeed.

This is the story of a stubborn, untalented, vainglorious man and it's a self-published book to boot. Doesn't that say it all?