This account of sex and substance abuse pulls no punches as it shocks and enlightens.
This debut memoir follows a gay man’s sexual exploration in front of and behind the movie camera as well as his battle with drug addiction.
Ferris, who was born in 1987, had his first sexual encounter with a high school classmate. This boy became his first crush, too, though the author’s already low self-esteem took a hit when his friend betrayed him. Ferris opted for sex with strangers by the time he was at a San Francisco college and soon moved to porn films, performing under the name Blue Bailey. At the same time, he dove deeply into substance abuse, with meth his drug of choice. Before the author was even 20 years old, a doctor diagnosed him as being HIV-positive. He was the one to console his family over this news; it was not the “death sentence” it once was, and those who were “POZ” like Ferris could still have active sex lives. He continued his adult-film career and gained some fame from one particular 2014 movie: Viral Loads. That was mostly due to its marketing campaign, which failed to clarify that star Blue Bailey, who engaged in sexual acts with HIV-positive performers, was POZ himself. Ferris later enrolled in law school and became an attorney. Even with his porn days behind him, his sex life was energetic and occasionally experimental. Sadly, his meth addiction was a never-ending fight; he’d manage to kick it but then fell back into the drug’s merciless trap. He aspired to be an activist lawyer, and that meant staying sober even when temptations surrounded him.
Ferris’ concise account is an unflinching look at his turbulent life that, as he warns readers, teems with graphically detailed sex scenes. He champions sex—and all the fetishes it entails—between consenting partners as well as normalizing gay sexuality. But the author highlights the downsides as well; using “liquid Viagra” on a movie set incited multiple trips to the emergency room, and one unnerving sexual escapade ended with his arrest for murder. None of this is exploitative, as the book’s 77 “scenes” feel like snapshots of the author’s life. Moreover, Ferris’ conversational narration frames all that he experienced in a stylish but uncompromising fashion: “I slip the needle in, thread my vein, and pull the plunger back. A plume of red. I am registered. I am an octopus inking through the water. Red is my safe word. Red means stop. Now, red means go. I am ready. Go.” The author’s support for the gay community and his “POZ brothers” is uplifting, and he brings to light some critical medical issues involving HIV-positive individuals. Much of the book nevertheless wallows in gloominess. His self-confidence, for example, continually wavered, and his meth addiction caused perpetual misery, sometimes leading to suicidal thoughts. Ferris also brushes past certain people in his life, from his barely mentioned partner, Sean, to his loving and sympathetic extended family. On the other hand, he includes a handful of personal photographs along with a copy of his witness statement after his arrest.
This account of sex and substance abuse pulls no punches as it shocks and enlightens.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-9913780-7-4
Page Count: 187
Publisher: Unbound Edition Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
