Professional Idiot

July 4, 2011
Raised by an alcoholic mother and a supportive but frequently absent father, Stephen "Steve-O" Glover was an imaginative boy with a serious need for attention. He fed this need by performing dangerous skateboarding stunts that he filmed and often showed to anyone willing to watch. In this honest and often graphic memoir, Glover details how this hobby turned into a career when he teamed up with the produc-ers of the dangerous stunt show Jackass. The successful show provided Glover with the fame he craved, but also allowed him to indulge in drugs and alcohol with wild abandon. Glover tells how he often stayed awake for days, hopped-up on an ever-changing cocktail of substances. While Glover comes across as a sweet person and depicts his descent into the depths of drug abuse with candor, he displays surprisingly little remorse about his drug use. Though there is a note of redemption at the endâhe's been able to maintain sobriety and has even become a veganâthe focus here is more on the stunts, wild stories, and drug abuse that got him there and that Jackass fans are expecting.

June 1, 2011

Jackass fans rejoice! Everybody else, shrug politely.

Followers of Johnny Knoxville's sadistic comedy stunt crew are a loyal bunch. They've stuck with Johnny et al. through a TV series and three movies that, while often hysterical, can grow repetitive. So, would a memoir from one of the original Jackasses be a worthy endeavor? Like the show, sometimes. With an assist from Spin magazine scribe Peisner, Glover proves himself to be an engaging storyteller, ripping through his bumpy, trouble-filled childhood, his rise to semi-fame and his descent to drug and alcohol addiction with a train-without-brakes momentum. Friends, family and Jackass-ian characters are heard from throughout, giving the book the feel of a whacked-out oral history. This structure was a canny decision, as the differing perspectives and voices add much-needed diversity—had it been all Steve-o, all the time, it might have become redundant. Knoxville actually gets off several of the best lines—e.g., of Steve-o's need to perform all the time, he notes, "I'm an attention whore myself, but he's an attention whorehouse." Steve-o also gets points for truth-telling, describing his incessant bad behavior with unflinching honesty, and he ultimately comes across as a funny, lovable, occasionally embarrassing goofball cousin.

Lowbrow, vulgar and sometimes hilarious—Jackass aficionados will eat this up.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)