Rating: 
Summary: A tribute to an attractive young man who had a sad life ...
Review: I've always liked watching Joey Stefano in videos, but I had no idea how sad his life was! The book chronicles his early life and then goes into how he got into porn. Reading the book, I felt a great deal of sympathy for Joey -- it seemed like every time he tried to get out of the dismal hell he was in, he'd get pulled right back in. Even though I knew how he ended up, I had been so hopeful that at one point he'd have at least a small amount of happiness. Anyone who likes Joey's films should read this book. Then watch the films again -- tell me that you won't forever see Joey in a different light.
Rating: 
Summary: Remembrance of Porn Stars Past
Review: If Mr. Isherwood can--preposterously--introduce his little book with an epigraph taken from Dr. Johnson, then I get to begin my mini-review with a quote from Alexander Pope: "What dire offense from am'rous causes springs,/What mighty contests rise from trivial things."This book is clearly the object of spirited debate, and indeed, it's hard for gay men not to have opinions about even a badly written little book featuring gay sex, gay drugs, and gay videos and their stars like the late Joey Stefano. The ferocity with which some of the book's critics attack it makes me suspect these people still harbor fantasies for Stefano that motivate them to preserve and revere his memory--as if they knew him in the first place! The real insight about gay men and their values is in the Amazon.com reviews of this book, and not the book itself. What most of these commentators seem not to notice, however, is that this is one of the most unintentionally funny books ever written for gay men. What a hoot! Isherwood--whoever he is--writes about a dead, drug-addicted, illiterate porn star with all the gravitas usually reserved for heads of state. Methinks the author had, and has, a crush on his subject. At his worst--and funniest--Isherwood tries to carry out a line of Freudian interpretation and to execute some kind of half-assed theory about "the real" Stefano (Nick Iacona--Stefano's real name) versus the gay cause celebre who had become Stefano the porn star. It's as if Mike Meyers got trapped in the body of Austin Powers and couldn't get out--so to speak. To those who slammed this book I say: "Get a life." Those who didn't slam it, on the other hand, and therefore would seem to be moved or elucidated or both by this book, probably need some secondary education and, well, a life. Gay men are supposed to be good at detecting camp--what happened to the camp-o-meters of this book's readers and reviewers? Oh, behave!
Rating:
Summary: How did the porn star feel?
Review: in fact i don't really like the book, but there is something which is really make me feel sorry with this guy. that is the part when stefeno was asked to write down all his problems, and he simply wrote down: No job No money No self-esteem No confidence All I have is my look and my body and there's not working anymore i feel washed-up Drug problem Hate life HIV-positive! Very sad, isn't it. Now i understand how is a porn star feel behind the charm.
Rating: 
Summary: Remembering Nick
Review: In general this is a well written and insightful account of the life and death of one of the 20th centuries latest and greatest porn stars. Isherwood gives us a warts and all picture of the greatness, the loneliness and the vacuity of the gay porn industry. Stefano, it appears, is another tragic example of how a beautiful, talented young individual can be bled dry by a community that took too much and gave nothing back. Overall, the book demonstrates that the enjoyment gained from the consumers of porn can be at the great expense of those who perform for our pleasure.
Rating: 
Summary: Isherwood's a good journalist, but he's not a biographer
Review: Isherwood begins with the famous words of Dr. Samuel Johnson, "All excellence has a right to be recorded", and while this is solid enough justification for the biography, his execution of the task is far from excellent. This is not for lack of trying, it appears that I. has employed all of his talent and training as a journalist to their fullest degree. He has found those who knew Joey when he was still Nick from South Philly and has collected revealing statements about Stefano's own take on his life from rare interviews, usually from studio-backed skin mags and old issues of AVN. He fleshed these out with reminiscences from the auteurs who gave him his start (notably ChiChi LaRue, the corpulent granddiva of gay porn, and bisexual transsexual Karen Dior, who starred with Stefano in his first adult film), the stars whom Stefano worked with, old roommates and friends. These form the heart of I.'s writing, but his account lacks any sort of soul. If there were a phrase which would best describe I.'s book it would be artificially compassionate. Rather than letting Joey's truly lamentable decline into depression and heavy substance abuse create genuine sympathy with the reader, I. never gets over the journalist's need to offer an interpretation, no matter how superficial or obvious. The title of the book comes from two staples of Stefano's existence, the peanut butter sandwiches made on fluffy white bread he ordered from the gay-owned grocery store near his apartment in W. Hollywood and the popular designer drug he became increasingly dependent upon towards the end of his short life. But instead of making us more sorry for the blue-collar kid who had a rough life, wound up with HIV dying in a vicious industry, it makes Stefano sound like the gay Elvis. This isn't compassionate, it's cloying. In order to feel sorry for Stefano, we have to suffer along with him (indeed, this is the root meaning of compassion), but I. refuses us this, instead we are led along a duller and duller path of Joey's in-and-out drug rehabilitation sessions, cut with surprisingly lackluster accounts of his in-and-out film sessions. In all honesty, I purchased this book expecting to be slightly titillated (Joey appears suggestively unclothed on the cover, and a reviewer quoted on the cover suggested "This book may titillate you. . ."), but I. focuses almost maniacally on Stefano's career path to self-destruction than on his career. Thus I.'s ostensible purpose in this biographical expose is apparently to point out how the gay porn industry (pardon the pun) thrusts these boys to stardom and just as quickly passes them over for the next big. . .well, thing. But rather than viewing Stefano's own self-destructive habits as at least as contributing to the studios' gradual distancing themselves from him, I. seems to pin the blame squarely on the filmmakers for employing him less and less. This is true enough, but the evidence points to the fact that little Nick, Jr. was adept enough at hustling for the cash to support his habits well before he came to W. Hollywood. Not to say that Stefano's tale is not heart-breaking and torturous, from all accounts he was a genuinely sweet guy who needed love and approval more than anything, and unfortunately wound up in a profession where these were at best short-lived. But, again, the journalist in I. wins out. Rather than letting the story speak for itself and letting us draw our own conclusions, he fiats rationales for Joey's behavior. His abusive father died when he was 15, and therefore his need for approval was driven by some universal unconscious need of gay men to please their fathers. Thanks, Freud, but sometimes a porn career is just a porn career. Not all of us have bad relationships with our fathers, and those of us who do live rather well-adjusted lives are frankly tired of the cliché of a universal gay male experience, one suspiciously patterned on back issues of Psychology Today (or is it old Pottery Barn catalogs?). Another amusing identifier of I.'s narrow West Coast worldview is the final sentence of the blurb on the rear cover, which tags Joey as coming from "the country's heartland." Yes, Philadelphia, breadbasket of the nation. I. also draws significance from the fact that Joey was born on New Year's Day, 1968, which he misidentifies as the "summer of love" (in fact it was 1967). Thus Joey becomes the porn superstar who shaped a generation, offering us a cultural alternative to those Reaganites who "were tuning up BMWs, turning on CNN, and dropping into the best restaurants." This certainly creates an interesting notion of what I. understands by the word "generation", but it is more telling of his penchant to let his well-developed gay male ironic sensibility (never let me be guilty of avoiding a generality when it suits my purpose!) determine his conclusions rather than let the facts speak for themselves. At its best, I.'s book paints a stark portrait of a bleak life, one bereft of much joy other than the occasional acid tab or peanut butter sandwich. There are moments where the sheer pain of Stefano's existence comes through and we see the young man, without much to his name other than his attractiveness (indeed he was all too aware his greatest asset wasn't going to last forever), and who was facing the prospect of the end of his career and his likely death from AIDS with little to show for it other than a stack of videotapes and hollow memories. But I. peppers this truly compelling story with unwarranted dispensations of talk-show psychobabble and indictments of the industry which did this to Joey. But, in the final analysis, the ultimate responsibility for the life and death of Joey Stefano rests squarely on his own shoulders. If the sad career of Joey Stefano, as told by I. means anything, it is not only that it's lonely at the top, but it's also pretty lonely on the bottom, too.
Rating:
Summary: La découverte d'une vie misérable
Review: Je trouve que la plupart des critiques formulées par nos amis américains sont dures. Je les trouvent bien pensants. Ce livre ne décrit pas les coulisses de l'industrie du porno gay, mais la vie de Joey Stefano. Un parcours de junkie. Le livre ne cherche à blâmer personne, il expose les fait. Reste un sentiment de voyeurisme sur la vie de cet homme, mais c'est précisemment le côté humain de sa vie qui importe...
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Summary: I loved Joey and I Loved the book
Review: Joey and I were about the same age and came into the gay scene at about the same time. I was mesmerized by the beautiful Joey and still think of him often. His movies are my favorites. Hoever, no that I am older, when I see them I wish I could just grab him out of the TV set and hold him safely. I feel sorry for the life that he had and what he went through at the end. I cried reading certain aspects of what this poor young man went through in his life and how he was used and abused by the industry and the gay community in general. After reading this book I so dispised Chi-Chi La Rue that if I ever met him I think I would spit in his face.
Rating:
Summary: Give him a break...he's dead for christ sake.
Review: Just spent a sad 5 mins reading the reviews about the life of Joey Stefano. Christ the guy is dead. tragic. Always hear the same sad old queens harping on about porn and the drugs industry. Yes Joey was responsible for his life and choices. He was rewarded handsomely for his roles. He didn't deserve to die. Strange how the very guys who berate porn stars have book shelves filled with porn. If it get to you that much don't buy the stuff and don't buy excellent books which light the arena of gay porn. Plain scared people are the worst. They never have to worry about the industry because their chances of attaining any porn career have been hampered by mother nature at birth. Shut up and let the rest of us star in and buy what we enjoy.
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Summary: Lonely Days and "Boogie Nights" by Don Normann
Review: Not to say that Charles Isherwood's style isn't a little heavy on the melodrama, but even without it, the tragic story of this 26-year old gayporn sex godlet is the stuff that movies are definitely made of nowadays. (One can almost hear the cel phones of Stephen Dorff, Billy Zane and Leonardo DiCaprio ringing with the turn of the final page.) For anyone who ever wondered what the flip side of "Boogie Nights" is like, here it is, warts and all. Mr. Isherwood is surprisingly objective the way he chronicles both sides of Stefano's life and personality, and the friends, lovers, hangers-on and other players in his life who by turns helped in many cases to both nuture and destroy him, putting the dichotomies and hypocricies of the porn world fully on display, which in their own context, aren't much unlike those which we "normal" people face in the "real" world. Entertaining and engaging, chilling and sobering, this not only serves to present a close-up view of the world of gay porn and its denizens, but offers up a cautionary fable for the '90's, to all those who have ever entertained starry-eyed notions of what it would be like to become part of that millieu.
Rating:
Summary: beautiful people have problems, too
Review: Stefano was beautiful -- pretty, actually -- and was determined to have a career in porn. Unfortunately he lacked the self-confidence to resist the drugs and build a new career beyond porn. From my own life I know what it's like to watch a friend spiral into self-destructive behavior and not know what to do to help them. So this story touched me in a deeper way -- I felt the helplessness his friends around him felt about his behavior. Lacking from the book, I think, is more info about his home life before he met LaRue. We don't get to know his family at all before the porn career begins and we only see his mom briefly fter his death. Also, I get the feeling the author (Isherwood) met or knew Stefano. I wish the author had written a foreword or afterword that discussed why he chose to write a biography on Stefano. Part of the story is missing.
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