A former Mr. Universe, Paris is an unexpectedly eloquent guide through his bodybuilding career, wiping off the posing oil to reveal a sport populated by insecure, drug-gobbling competitors, all beholden to a single Machiavellian puppet master. Paris, who has previously cowritten a perky memoir of gay marriage, Straight from the Heart (1994), and several exercise books, started lifting weights as a teenager in the late '70s, discovering in this pastime an enticing, self-esteem-building alternative to partying with his slacker friends and enduring the abuse of his alcoholic father. After being thrown out of the house at 19, Paris made his way to the bodybuilder's mecca, L.A., and endured many harrowing months of struggle before getting steady work as a trainer and winning his first competitions. Although Paris believes bodybuilding to be an intrinsically worthy sport, he paints a damning portrait of its chief booster, Joe Weider, who publishes muscle magazines and sells training equipment and nutritional supplements; Weider's brother is the head of the organization that sanctions competitions and awards the titles. Bodybuilders make their money on contracts with Weider for endorsements and appearances; to be useful endorsers, they need exposure in his magazines and, of course, victories in his brother's contests. Paris carefully expresses his gratitude for Weider's sometime support, but he also suspects that calling for drug testing and being openly gay cost him titles in the latter part of his career. The book alternates between past history and the issues involved in Paris's recent contemplation of a comeback at age 35: Unwilling to go back on the steroids that give musclemen their ``freaky'' bodies, and wary of the Weider way of doing business, Paris seems understandably unlikely to return to the fray. At once empathetic and scathing, Paris's memoir conveys with equal persuasiveness both why he became a bodybuilder and why he found it impossible to remain one.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-312-16855-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1997
The fifth annual offering in this series edited by Stout features stories selected by Jenkins (You Gotta Play Hurt, 1991, etc.), this year's editor, and as usual, the results are mostly impressive. Looking back with the talented writers whose work festoons this volume, one quickly is reminded that 1994 was a dismal year for sports: the major-league baseball strike, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, Jennifer Capriati's brush with the law and drug rehab, O.J. Simpson's arrest. Not surprisingly, the generally ugly tone of the year in sports is reflected in a volume dominated by these unpleasant topics. Jenkins mercifully only includes one piece on the O.J. trial, a brutal concoction by James Ellroy that is as savage and bleak in tone as any of that estimable neo-noir author's novels. It was a bad year for humor, judging from the contents of this collection, which is bookended by two excruciatingly unfunny pieces by Bob Verdi (on the baseball strike) and Ian Thomsen (on TonyaGate). The highs and lows of the collection are amply demonstrated in the book's foreword and introduction, respectively, a heartfelt tribute to a little-known black writer by Stout and a sour, mean-spirited diatribe against intellectuals who write on sports by Jenkins. Once you are past Jenkins, however, there is a multiplicity of rewards here. Particularly worthy are Dave Kindred's visit with Ted Williams, shortly after the great hitter's stroke; Gary Smith's superb reporting on a gathering of most of the world's living record-holders in the mile; and Gary Cartwright's recollection of a vanished high school football legend from his hometown. This book proves once again that although sports may be falling apart under the relentless pressure of corporate meddling, greed, drugs, racism, and the rest of the real world, sportswriters are still reporting that downfall with keen intelligence and art.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1995
ISBN: 0-395-70070-1
Page Count: 265
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The awesome vision of a woman tearing herself down to the bone and then slowly, painstakingly, recreating herself in her own image. Pushcart Prize winner Legler (Creative Writing/Univ. of Alaska) is violently angry at herself and her surroundings. Even as she fishes and hunts with her gentle, loving husband, she feels defensive, insecure, and alone. Legler reveals bits of what disturbs her—the dawning awareness of her precarious place among sportsmen, the inability to penetrate her father's unloving exterior, her sister's suicide—but it is not until nearly halfway through the book that we learn Legler's looming secret: her lesbianism. Suddenly, the fragments of her personality converge—for us. For Legler, the process is more gradual and painful. She decides to leave her husband; she begins to date women. Her family is neither unkind nor understanding. In the end, Legler is still not completely happy with herself, but she has found some measure of peace and strong, lasting friendships. Through it all, the author hunts and fishes. But like her sexuality, these activities are tinged with ambivalence. She tries to explain how a seemingly cruel act can be transformed through respect and gratitude. Legler hits upon a provoking idea, comparing her hunting with eroticism and the dismembered meat in the supermarket with pornography. ``Nearly everything we cooked for our feasts was from our garden, or collected from the woods, or killed by us. . . . I want this kind of intimate relationship with the food I eat.'' Birds in the supermarket, on the other hand, were ``grotesque combinations of named parts. It always felt obscene to me.'' Although these essays are ostensibly distinct, together they create a sense of process that makes this book exceptional. Legler's epiphanies are book-length—and longer. What this volume evokes is beyond sympathy; the reader aches for Legler's pain.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1995
ISBN: 1-878067-70-2
Page Count: 180
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
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