A journey into the mind and heart of a writer like this has its painful moments to be sure, but it also left me feeling provoked and even inspired. I don’t think I have read a “reader” like this that I thought so successfully laid out what an author is all about in his various moods and guises. Usually I avoid those things because the irritating fragments they contain rarely show the greatness which they are capable of; it is usually better to go directly to the best known works. These pieces were selected by Tosches himself, and although I think that an artist is not always the best judge of his own work, at least this way one gets a look at what he himself thinks should be in his reader.
Tosches is a writer of many facets, most of them not very nice. He is in love with sleaze in all of its varieties – the dank, acrid worlds of crime, substance abuse, and falls from grace is what he likes to write about the most. The thinking man’s slimeball, Tosches began his career as a music journalist specializing in country and rock. From there he branched out into poetry, feature articles, fiction, and biography. His true specialty is the area in which the world of scuzz overlaps with the world of entertainment and spectacle, and I would be surprised if anyone has written better about this sort of thing than he has. In this book are many fine pieces describing the lives of those whom fame could not redeem, such as country singer George Jones, Hollywood & Mafia lawyer Sidney Korshak, TV preachers Swaggart and Bakker, and rock writer Lester Bangs. He has written entire books on Jerry Lee Lewis, Sonny Liston, Dean Martin, and financier Michele Sindona – and excerpts from all of these are in the collection.
Tosches makes his presence known and makes it clear that his writings are going to be about his opinions and perceptions. Much of what he expresses is laced with dark sarcasm, and though the taste may be bitter at times, one keeps reading, almost as if reading his stuff was a nasty and hard-to-break little habit. He has no qualms about throwing in a little homophobia and objectification of women; he was a tough kid from Jersey City and still carries some of the values of his youth. When he turns his contemptuous gaze at subjects such as the Iron John men’s movement or the Elvis Presley lives phenomenon, real hilarity and sharp social criticism can be the outcome.
The book is also full of autobiographical sections. Tosches takes us along for a few drunken escapades (he is/was a serious binge drinker), memories of a blue-collar youth, and a few romantic encounters that reek with repressed anger toward women. His imagination tends toward the mythical on occasion, and he has a way of hinting offhandedly at deeper meanings without explaining them. His poetry is spontaneous and formless, mostly it seems blurted out, ringing both funny and soulful (but sometimes just foolish). There were times when I cringed while reading this, but I never wanted to put it down. I realized I was in the presence of an egomaniac, but a true artist – a writer with an impressive vocabulary and a willingess to look deep into the darknesses within himself and others, and to present perceptions that no one else has or could.
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- Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2022
