Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder

The author describes his journey from ninety-eight pound weakling to prizewinning muscle man, through four years of endless repetitive exercises, prodigious quantities of food and vitamins, and massive steroid injections

YA-- Teenage boys who a generation ago would have answered Charles Atlas ads will be attracted to this book about Fussell's own immersion program in bodybuilding. He is an Oxford honors graduate in English language and literature and writes engagingly about what drew him into the subculture of gym life. He includes the reaction of his bewildered parents and describes the assortment of gym habitues who befriended him. This is no George Plimpton inside glimpse--the author lived the bodybuilding life full-time for four years, and he shares with his readers that life of mind-numbing exercises, fistfuls of vitamins, and steroid injections. This is destined to be a cult book that will survive because of its humor, its truth, and its fine writing. --Judy McAloon, Richard Byrd Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"I sing of arms and the man," writes Fussell in this account of his four years as a serious bodybuider. The son of academics and an Oxford graduate himself, the author returned to New York after college to find himself "in a constant state of terror in the city." At 64 and 170 pounds, Fussell reacted by pumping iron in 1984, then moved to the West Coast and eventually reached his peak: 257 pounds of bone and muscle, impressive enough to participate in local contests. While focusing on his own development the author also examines the world at large of bodybuilders, portraying their diets, drugs and dedication to the sport as a kind of religion over which Arnold Schwarzenegger presides as chief deity. Fussell finally quit, fearing he had become a human caricature--and less than human. A book of minor significance, but enjoyable reading.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.