Solotaroff, Paul. The Body Shop: Parties, Pills and Pumping Iron: Or, My Life in the Age of Muscle. Little, Brown.
This memoir concerns “bigorexia,” defined as an obsession particularly among males with some supposed defect in their personal appearance. Before body building achieved world fascination in the Seventies due to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno there was a 20-year old literature student at SUNY Stony Brook loathing how he looked especially to women. Receiving little sympathy from his father, a respected writer and editor, Solotaroff turned to a once “stick thin boy” in his dorm who got him into weight training. He would also be exposed to the “genie in the steel syringe” (steroids) long before anyone knew about the inevitable damage. Solataroff’s new appearance led to a sex and drugs party life and work as a male stripper. There then followed a complete physical/emotional burnout and loss of a steady girl friend. Now a contributor to Men’s Journal and Rolling Stone, Solataroff tells a cautionary tale of how some will go to extremes for social and personal acceptance.
Reviewed by Librarian, Bob.
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