Prisoner of X

Prisoner of X: Twenty-Two Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine, by Allan MacDonnell.

ISBN: 1-932595-13-9

Right here, I shall make the case that a book cover can determine its commercial success. It's not true all the time, but this is the latest in a line of books in which the quality of writing, the way the book feels, is so much better than the cover suggests.

I'm disappointed on behalf of the author, Mr MacDonnell, because his book is worth the money and the time. The subject matter won't be to everyone's taste, but if you can get over the background, the foreground of his description of life working at a porn magazine makes for good reading. An undertone (and, now I think about it, an overtone) of snark inhabits Mr MacDonnell's writing, but he's equally snarky about himself as all those around him in Larry Flynt's business empire.

For the unfamiliar, Larry Flynt is the publisher of Hustler, the apogee of skin-mags. His empire (Larry Flynt Publications) is a grab-bag of flesh-driven enterprises that made him a centi-millionaire. "Prisoner of X" is an insider's story, a tell-all of the ridiculous ways men like Larry Flynt make a fortune despite themselves.

Do I sound envious? Well, kinda. I was a fan of Hustler in its heyday, the 80s. Then it was the dirtiest of the big three news-stand-type mags, considerably to the south of Playboy and less air-brushed than Penthouse. (That's a figurative concept, less airbrushed, not a literal one, because...well, you know, they all do it.) A subscription to Hustler said: He'll Do Anything. Subscription to Penthouse said: He'll Do Anything (mostly). And a subscription to Playboy said: He'll lick your tits.)

Larry Flynt started in Lakeville, Kentucky and ended up in Los Angeles, California. That's the architecture of success in America, or was, until recently. Our protagonist, Mr MacDonell, started in LA, first as a copy-editor on Hustler, so his story's different from that of his boss. The concept of a copy-editor at Hustler is mildly disconcerting, like the idea of quality control in China. Nevertheless, such jobs exist, which makes my Hustler subscription vaguely mainstream.

So the take-down is that Mr Mac starts at the bottom (ahem) at Hustler, and ends up at the top, the executive editor. In the intervening period his personal and buff life make for a good if not great book.

If only he'd insisted on better cover art-work, this thing might have been a best seller.


Bottoms Up, Airbrushers!




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