If They Only Knew

With its beguiling blend of swagger and vulnerability, anger and poise, largesse and disgust, Laurer's tell-all tragicomedy will not disappoint her many fans. Sharp-tongued, idiom-slinging and wry, the voice encountered in these pages is both more and less than the Chyna who appears in the wrestling ring. Laurer's painful childhood and adolescence were characterized by her sense of her difference from her peers (taller, more muscular) and punctuated by the antics of her divorced mother and father. She leads us through the tribulations and joys of searching for her niche (belly dancing, selling pagers in inner-city neighborhoods); of getting the proper breast implant size; of changing the role of women in the WWF; of intra-WWF romance; of celebrity. In one memorable scene, while she is fighting for a spot in the WWF, she outdoes pro-wrestler Hunter (who later becomes her boyfriend) in the weight room. In another, terrible moment, her mother and stepfather burst in on her at the doctor's office, livid because her con-artist father had already used their insurance to cover thousands of dollars of his medical bills. As Laurer eloquently demonstrates, her chosen profession makes a fine metaphor for her life. The book successfully maintains Chyna's awe-inspiring, larger-than-life image at the same time that it imparts deeply personal, poignant and inspirational insight into Joanie Laurer. B&w photos. (Jan. 30) Forecast: With her recent Playboy feature, the book's excellent array of photos, Chyna's fan base, a planned author tour and a print run of 300,000 this book should sell big, as have other recent memoirs by wrestling stars.