Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson

by Darwin Porter

Book Overview

From famed celebrity biographer Darwin Porter, this is the most honest and journalistically important biography of Michael Jackson ever published, with a roster of literary reviews that outnumber and outclass any other MJ bio on the market. After its original release in 2007, it was widely reviewed as the most thorough and comprehensive biography of the superstar published anytime during the previous 15 years. Following the superstar's death in June...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1936003104
• ISBN13: 9781936003105
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Blood Moon Productions
• Length: 600 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Jacko, His Rise and Fall Second Edition

I always believe biographies fall somewhere in the middle: Not always the truth, but not always truthful. The author does an amazing job of remaining unbiased toward Michael Jackson. I have read biographers that clearly dislike their subject and want to assume the worst. This author merely reports what he has researched with as many sources as possible. He admits not all the sources are reliable and much might be hearsay. I am a Michael Jackson fan and believe his fame and stardom were ultimately his downfall. I don't believe Michael would purposely hurt anyone, especially children. He lived an amazing life but fraught with stressors and tensions we can only imagine. There was probably no way Michael could have been a "normal, everyday person." He was one in a billion and I am just glad this author respected his memory.

If michael jackson fans don`t like it, then it must be a good read

I`m gonna buy this book right now. Why? Because Michael Jackson fans are giving it only one star and claiming that it`s all lies. That`s how you can tell a good and truthful book on Michael Jackson, when his fans don`t like it.

The Dance of Michael Jackson's Life!

This book is an amazing compilation of hundreds of biographical notes that have been skillfully orchestrated into an excellent, well balanced composition. One attribute of the book that I particularly enjoyed was that those whose lives touched Michael's are given bios that are proportional to the influence that each had in his life. The text is interspersed with numerous small photographs that perfectly complement the thorough content without overwhelming it. The book also provides a glimpse of the enormous and often difficult forces that come upon the super famous in the course of their fishbowl lives. A superb work.

Intriguing insights into a bizarre protagonist

This is the best show-biz story I've ever read about the creation and subsequent wreckage of an American icon. It's about the very rich and the very self-enchanted as only America and its entertainment industry can produce. There are lots of anecdotes here, the kind of gossipy, late-night TV stuff you'd probably hoped for, but there's also a sense of the man behind the monster -- the Why and What and How that's been sorely lacking in previously published assessments of the star everyone loves to hate. My favorite blip within a comprehensive biography that's bursting with mini-dramas? It's the one involving Michael Jackson, Nancy Reagan, anda brouhaha inside one of the White House toilets which all by itself is worth the price of the book. Overall, this first-of-a-kind compendium of the MJ vs. America saga is absolutely fabulous.

"Hot and Unique: A Thriller!"

Everyone I know has a cache of MJ anecdotes, but none of us ever saw how the rise and fall of Michael Jackson represents a panoramic sweep across all strata of the American experience. This book has it all. Even its index reads like a "Who's Who" that illuminates the politics, priorities, and vanities of the very rich and terribly famous. While Old guard Hollywood and A-list Washington DC tended, at least at first, to indulge the emerging superstar, his fall from grace, in retrospect, makes the Salem Witch Trials look like a picnic at Neverland. Porter's book is about superstardom in America, the horrors that usually accompany it, and ritualized dementia in the entertainment industry. Even if you hate Michael Jackson and everything he represents, this book is intensely entertaining--well worth the time it takes to read it.