Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man For Rent - Softcover

Sterry, David Henry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1593765274 ISBN 13: 9781593765279

Publisher: Catapult, 2013

Synopsis

I walk all the way up Hollywood Boulevard to Grauman's Chinese Theatre: past tourists snapping shots; wannabe starlets sparkling by in miniskirts with head shots in their hands and moondust in their eyes; rowdy cowboys drinking with drunken Indians; black businessmen bustling by briskly in crisp suits; ladies who do not lunch with nylons rolled up below the knee pushing shopping carts full of everything they own; Mustangs rubbing up against muscular Mercedes and Hell's Angels hogs.

It's a sick twisted Wonderland, and I'm Alice.

Here is a story like no other: The unforgettable chronicle of a season spent walking the razor-sharp line between painful innocence and the allure of the abyss. David Sterry was a wide-eyed son of 1970s suburbia, but within his first week looking for off-campus housing on Sunset Boulevard he was lured into a much darker world — servicing the lonely women of Hollywood by night.

Chicken—the word is slang for a young male prostitute—revisits this year of living dangerously, in a narrative of dazzling inventiveness and searing candor. Shifting back and forth from tales of Sterry's youth—spent in the awkward bosom of a disintegrating dysfunctional family—to his fascinating account of the Neverland of post—sixties sexual excess, Chicken teems with Felliniesque characters and set pieces worthy of Dionysus. And when the life finally overwhelms Sterry, his retreat from the profession will leave an indelible mark on readers' minds and hearts.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

"Visceral, frank and compulsive reading.' -City Life, Manchester

"Sparkling prose... a triumph of the will." -Buzz Magazine

"Pick of the Week." -Independent

"Impossible to put down, even, no, especially when, the sky is falling...Vulnerable, tough, innocent and wise... A fast-paced jazzy writing style... a great read." -Hallmemoirs

"Full of truth, horror, and riotous humor." -The Latest Books

"His memoir is a super-readable roller coaster -- the story of a young man who sees more of the sexual world in one year than most people ever do." - Dr. Carol Queen, Spectator Magazine

"Terrifically readable... Sterry's an adventurer who happens to feel and think deeply. He's written a thoroughly absorbing story sensitively and with great compassion... A page-turner... This is a strange story told easily and well." - Eileen Berdon, Erotica.com

"Love to see this book turned into a movie, Julianne Moore might like to play Sterry's mum..." - by Iain Sharp The Sunday Star-Times, Auckland, New Zealand).

From the Back Cover

"Like an X-rated Boogie Nights narrated by a teenage Alice in Wonderland. Sterry's anecdotes... expose Hollywood at its seamiest, a desperate city of smut and glitz. I read the book from cover to cover in one night, finally arriving at the black and white photo of the softly smiling former chicken turned memoirist." -Places Magazine

"Snappy and acutely observational writing... It's a book filled with wit, some moments of slapstick, and of some severe poignancy... a flair for descriptive language... The human ability to be kind ultimately reveals itself, in a book which is dark, yet always upbeat and irreverent. A really good, and enlightening, read." - Ian Beetlestone, Leeds Guide

"Brutally illuminating and remarkably compassionate... a walk on the wild side which is alternatively exhilirating and horrifying, outrageous and tragic... Essential reading." - Big Issue

About this edition

• Publisher: Catapult
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1593765274
• ISBN 13: 9781593765279
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272