Rating: 
Summary: Tosches does not ignore the mysterious deaths of the 2 wives
Review: An "amen" to any words of praise that have already been spoken about this amazing book. What I would like to point out is that the reason the deaths of wife #3, Jaren Pate, and wife #4, Shawn Stevens, are not covered in the book is that they took place 3 or 4 years after the publication of Hellfire. However, Tosches does discuss both deaths in Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock n Roll, and quite chillingly at that. ("Your sister's dead", Jerry Lee said to Denise Stevens the day after Shawn's bruised and bloodied corpse was discovered, "and she was a bad girl"). Come now, you don't think Tosches could keep silent about the Killer's Killings, do you?
Rating:
Summary: Tosches does not ignore the mysterious deaths of the 2 wives
Review: An "amen" to any words of praise that have already been spoken about this amazing book. What I would like to point out is that the reason the deaths of wife #3, Jaren Pate, and wife #4, Shawn Stevens, are not covered in the book is that they took place 3 or 4 years after the publication of Hellfire. However, Tosches does discuss both deaths in Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock n Roll, and quite chillingly at that. ("Your sister's dead", Jerry Lee said to Denise Stevens the day after Shawn's bruised and bloodied corpse was discovered, "and she was a bad girl"). Come now, you don't think Tosches could keep silent about the Killer's Killings, do you?
Rating: 
Summary: Concentarted on the tawrdy
Review: I thought the book HELLFIRE was very well written and agree with other readers' comments that it was in presented in the style of a great novel. However, Mr. Tosches concentrated on the negative aspects of Jerry Lee Lewis' great career. . .i.e. the drinking and drug abuse. . .without noting the fact that he overcame these flaws. The book does not mention his 13 year marriage to his wife, Keffi, which has produced two children (one born and one adopted), or his induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 (one of the first inductees). I think the book would have been of greater value if it took us to the present time. I saw the Killer in concert in March while visiting Memphis and thought he was still at the top of his craft. Instead of concentrating solely on the tawdry aspects of Jerry Lee's life, I would've appreciated more credit for the fact that he fought his demons and overcame them.
Rating:
Summary: GREATEST BOOK ON THE GREATEST PERFORMER!
Review: It's been said before, but I'm going to repeat it: Toshes' opus is without a shadow of a doubt in my mind the greatest book ever written about a country/rock'n'roll performer. Peter Guralnick did a great job on Elvis, Colin Escott wrote a marvelous book about Hank Williams and Bob Allen gave us an fascinating insight on George Jones, but really, they don't even comes close to Toshes. If You're the least interested in rock'n'roll and country music and the orgins of both You are not excused for missing out on the event called "Hellfire". Lewis's life has been a blessing to the fans and a field day for the media. As Greil Marcus commented, one might not wish to be Jerry Lee Lewis, but the man has no equals in the annals of popular music. And the end of the book is, as Marcus pointed out in the foreword, downright scary. Today Jerry Lee is only a pale shadow of his former self, but "Hellfire" provides us with the true measure of the man and the performer and gives us a reminder of just how great he was. As Jerry Lee himself might say: "think about it"!
Rating: 
Summary: The fictional Jerry Lee Lewis.
Review: Nick Tosches book about premier white blues rocker,Jerry Lee Lewis was in style very well written.Pity that most of it was highly negative fiction. From 1958 to date,the estbalishment hasn't given Jerry Lee a fair chance and many fans much rather exaggerated sleaze than his great music today. Instead of dealing with Lewis' influences,songs and hits in more detail,the book goes overboard on his personal life too much - most of it never even happened.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good look into the life and times of Jerry Lee Lewis.
Review: Nick Tosches has taken a different view of Jerry Lee's life than what some other authors do. He has researched into the background of the family name 'Lewis.' He also talks about some events in Jerry Lee's that you don't usually hear. I would recommend buying this book, not only because Jerry Lee has had such a dramtic life but also because his life has been well written into the book.
Rating:
Summary: What's Up Nick?
Review: This is a fabulous book but--mysteriously--Nick Tosches doesn't address the rumors that Jerry "The Killer" Lewis murdered at least one of his young wives (there was even a long, engrossing, article in Rolling Stone about the possibility, some years back). It would have been nice to get Tosches take on the subject. His lack of a printed opinion was my only disappointment with this book.
Rating:
Summary: Truth is stranger than fiction, tosches talks that truth
Review: This is a great book of literature, a book I have actually bought several times to give to fiction writers, especially a writer I know who writes about lives and loves in Louisiana. Tosches is not a fact meister, an assembler of minute bits of information. (Although starting out with wondering and truly fictive chapters in the original version of his Country Music, Tosches launched the change of investigation that discovered the facts about who Emmett Miller was and where he is buried). Instead, Tosches finds the kind of truth that is found in great jazz, in beat poetry. and thrilling novels where even fictions are truer than the most irrefutable facts. This is what he after here, not uncovering every jot and biddle of JLL's 67 years of life. In this regard he has a heroic figure, JLL, the greatest artist produced by Rockabilly, the truest synthesis of all that is good and wild and meaniful about southern white Ameica's synthesis of blues, jazz, tin-pan alley, and country represented in JLL's long time declaration that the three masters are Jimmy Rodgers, Hank Williams, and Al Jolson! Tosches captures the drive, the heat, the darkness, and the resonance with the reality of America's story of a culture warped by racism, sexism, greed, and of truths that have been covered over by common place facts. Just like JLL on a good night, the prose here rips through the story in a way that will wake you up and get you moving, get you thinking. This is a book for writers, for music lovers, and for those like me who believe JLL is one of the greats. How can it be that no one else has written a serious biography of JLL? Are they all afraid of JLL and Tosches?
Rating:
Summary: Truth is stranger than fiction, tosches talks that truth
Review: This is a great book of literature, a book I have actually bought several times to give to fiction writers, especially a writer I know who writes about lives and loves in Louisiana. Tosches is not a fact meister, an assembler of minute bits of information. (Although starting out with wondering and truly fictive chapters in the original version of his Country Music, Tosches launched the change of investigation that discovered the facts about who Emmett Miller was and where he is buried). Instead, Tosches finds the kind of truth that is found in great jazz, in beat poetry. and thrilling novels where even fictions are truer than the most irrefutable facts. This is what he after here, not uncovering every jot and biddle of JLL's 67 years of life. In this regard he has a heroic figure, JLL, the greatest artist produced by Rockabilly, the truest synthesis of all that is good and wild and meaniful about southern white Ameica's synthesis of blues, jazz, tin-pan alley, and country represented in JLL's long time declaration that the three masters are Jimmy Rodgers, Hank Williams, and Al Jolson! Tosches captures the drive, the heat, the darkness, and the resonance with the reality of America's story of a culture warped by racism, sexism, greed, and of truths that have been covered over by common place facts. Just like JLL on a good night, the prose here rips through the story in a way that will wake you up and get you moving, get you thinking. This is a book for writers, for music lovers, and for those like me who believe JLL is one of the greats. How can it be that no one else has written a serious biography of JLL? Are they all afraid of JLL and Tosches?
Rating:
Summary: Tour-de-force prose fires up an already wild life story.
Review: This was the book that established Nick Tosches as the absolute benchmark writer on American popular culture.The story is gripping in its bare bones, but what really enthralls is Tosches' flamboyant, baroque prose that both parodies and celebrates the wild energy of the southern religious fervour that was Lewis's deepest inspiration and source of greatest torment. The whole thing may be too rich for some tastes, and in lesser hands would likely have emerged as overripe and trite, but Tosches' awe at the man and love for the music is obvious. Like all of the author's work, it is also extremely funny. "Dino" and "Country" are also highly recommended.
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