The Body Shop: Parties, Pills, and Pumping Iron - Or, My Life in the Age of Muscle

by Paul Solotaroff

Book Overview

In a matter of months, he grew from a dorky beanpole into a hulking behemoth, showing off his rock hard muscles first on the streets of New York City and then alongside his colorful gym-rat friends in strip clubs and in the homes of the gotham elite. It was a swinging time, when "Would you like to dance?" turned into "Your place or mine?" and the guys with the muscles had all the ladies -- until their bodies, like Solotaroff''s, completely shut down...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316011010
• ISBN13: 9780316011013
• Release Date: July 2010
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Bridget's Review

I got this book because the description sounded like something I would enjoy. I was completely shocked by how interesting this memoir is. It almost reads like fiction in some parts and Paul is a master with words.

Harrowing, hilarious, haunting

I finished this book a few days ago and can't get it out of my head. A lurid phantasmagoria of dark slapstick, it is also a haunting account of familial sorrow. Our hero, an erstwhile skinny, shy bookworm who longs for a sex life as much as for the attention of his distant father, discovers the transformative powers of body building and steroids as a 20-year-old college student. Turning girls' heads turns his head away from the high literary tradition of his dysfunctional family, or so he thinks. No matter how far he falls into the juice-pumped cesspool that was the New York sex-and-drug scene in the Seventies, his thoughts are never far from his deeply disapproving father. The writing is manic and brilliant. The descriptions of bad judgement, bad behavior, and bad clothes are priceless.

Poignant, funny, and clever

Body Shop had me laughing til it hurt - but at least I was exercising my abs at the same time. Written with great humor and wit, this book is a must read for anyone who lived through this era or ever head about it. It is a sexy and yet poignant portrayal of a young man's search for himself and a connection with his absent father.