Vanity Fair's James Wolcott takes on the burgeoning new porn-star memoir genre in "Debbie Does Barnes & Noble." After reading Jerry Butler's Raw Talent, Christy Canyon's Lights, Camera, Sex!, Traci Lords's Underneath It All, and Jenna Jameson's How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Wolcott comes up with a basic outline for the classic porn-star memoir, from the traditional bad childhood to the attempted happy ending. The one exception, Wolcott finds, is Legs McNeil's The Other Hollywood, an oral history of porn by the author of Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk.

I suspect the reason The Other Hollywood didn't enjoy the strong sales and critical hoo-ha of How to Make Love Like a Porn Star is that it chipped away the silver finish and showed the layers of grime and mobster influence in the industry, the cruddy accretion. You finish the book in need of a Karen Silkwood power shower. But precisely because Jameson's book made the bigger noise, it has established the template for porn-star exposés queuing for takeoff. Porn star Sunset Thomas just announced the forthcoming publication of her life story, in which, according to her online press release, "she welcomes the reader behind the scenes of her most notorious adult films and into the alternately seedy and posh gentlemen's clubs where she headlines." (The posh ones serve free peanuts.) "She is unstinting in her account of the industry's harsh realities, but takes personal responsibility for all of her decisions, and traces her progress from naïve co-dependent to mother and, finally, to savvy business woman in full control of her destiny." Yeah, right. Well, at least she's got a catchy title for the book, one that could serve as a bumper sticker for the entire genre and as the proud emblem for our Paris Hiltonized celebrity culture: American Whore.

via Boing Boing

jake_lex

Lexington, KY

February 2003

AUG 25, 2005 09:44 AM

I read The Other Hollywood, and I didn't really consider it to be an expose or attempt to discredit porn; just brutally honest.

xokatyxo

United Kingdom

December 2004

AUG 25, 2005 10:09 AM

I love porn star memoirs...

Can't wait to read Ron Jeremy's. Out next year!

van_goghs_ear

Farmington, MI

March 2005

AUG 25, 2005 10:16 AM

yeah i'm a big fan of porn memoirs also. jenna's book was interesting had alot of good anecdotes. traci lords book was horribly written and pretty much sucked. i'm waiting for the other hollywood to come to soft cover (so it's cheaper) before i get it.

whitepuma

Australia

March 2004

AUG 25, 2005 02:25 PM

Love the title of the new memoirs book but the porn industry is the porn industry after all and the thing i do not understand is how the american govt can premote the porn industry while not providing a safe and legal environment for prostitutes as the only difference in my opinon is one gets fillmed and the other takes care of ordinary people who can not get laid at all.

TheFuckOffKid

NEWSWIRE

Australia

AUG 25, 2005 02:33 PM

whitepuma said:
how the american govt can premote the porn industry

Say what now?

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NEWS: The Rise of the Porn-Star Memoir

susannah_breslin

I'm lost

June 2005

AUG 25, 2005 09:34 AM

jake_lex

Lexington, KY

February 2003

AUG 25, 2005 09:44 AM

xokatyxo

United Kingdom

December 2004

AUG 25, 2005 10:09 AM

van_goghs_ear

Farmington, MI

March 2005

AUG 25, 2005 10:16 AM

whitepuma

Australia

March 2004

AUG 25, 2005 02:25 PM

TheFuckOffKid

NEWSWIRE

Australia

AUG 25, 2005 02:33 PM