The true story of a failed actor, who - still tantalized by the promise of LA - reinvents himself as a nightclub bouncer. Working both downtown and on the Sunset Strip, he is thrust into the bloodstream of LA. Amidst the unending parade of strung-out transients, shimmering miniskirts, enraged gangbangers and unhinged party people, he avenges his history of cowardice, atones for his past infidelities and tries to become something better than another Hollywood casualty.
I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
If you don't live and or have never experienced Hollywood, you might find the accounts of Mr. Meyer to be highly exaggerated. But I live in LA, and while I'm not much for going out to clubs, I have been to a few. I have seen everything he described and worse. I have had friends be threatened to be killed by the gangbangers he described. I have seen drugs sold in bathroom stalls. I have seen the drunks and the sluts and everything you can imagine. His vivid storytelling of how the lure of LA is too much to resist is so truthful, so realistic and so fantastically detailed, I was amazed.
The Sunset Strip is given a good light as well; not just the seedy side is described. There's nothing like seeing Slash play an impromptu gig at the Roxy, or see Jim Morrison's autograph in The Whisky A Go-Go before you head down to the Rainbow for drinks and pizza. Do I sound like I like LA? I do. I f*cking love it!
Reading this book was as enthralling as being in LA is to me, and was to Mr. Meyer. Another thing I loved about this book was his drive to not give up and go home. Even when he didn't make it as an actor, he did what he could to stay here. It's about self-realization, acceptance and finding your place in this big, bad world.
This is a book that you can read and reread, even if you don't like nonfiction. This feels like fiction, because tales of LA always do sound like fiction. His prose is fluid and simplistic. He is a natural born storyteller!
4/5--I will definitely be rereading it!
Purchase Icarus Falling on Amazon.
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