cover image Professional Idiot

Professional Idiot

Stephen "Steve-O" Glover, with David Peisner. Hyperion, $25.99 (336p) ISBN 9781401324339

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 end%E2%80%94he's been able to maintain sobriety and has even become a vegan%E2%80%94the focus here is more on the stunts, wild stories, and drug abuse that got him there and that Jackass fans are expecting. (June)