From Publishers Weekly
Having lived with psychological scars since childhood, screenwriter Nyswaner (Philadelphia; Soldier's Girl) recounts his struggles in this searing memoir. After writing the Oscar-nominated Philadelphia, he was still tortured by emotional problems and turned to alcohol and drugs. As Nyswaner shuttles between Hollywood script meetings and caring for his ailing parents, his only source of pleasure is Johann, a cold-hearted male hustler who dominates him sexually and emotionally. Eventually, Nyswaner's obsession with Johann merges with his insatiable desire for drugged oblivion, leading him into a dangerous addiction. With unsparing honesty, Nyswaner conjures the sensation of a crystal meth high and the ensuing paranoia. His explicit accounts of sex with Johann aren't titillating, but rather tinged with the yearning for submission that Nyswaner so desperately craves. Finally hitting rock bottom after the death of a loved one and contemplating suicide, Nyswaner ends his drug dependency, although he doesn't tell readers how he did it. Did the "meetings" Nyswaner's therapist convinced him to attend finally work? Although the book is a compelling journey through the world of male prostitution and drug abuse, Nyswaner's recovery remains a mystery. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Move over, Holly Golightly! Capote's memorable prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold has an unlikely heir apparent. Johann, wrapped in storm-trooper drag and a seemingly impermeable shell of mastery, contempt, and control, softened with a soupcon of caring, is, as screenwriter Nyswaner (best known for Philadelphia) presents him, oddly endearing. For Johann's professional strictures against lip-kissing, caressing--really, any sort of intimacy-- were perverse turn-ons for the smitten, eternally curious Nyswaner. In this thoroughly engaging, never self-pitying memoir of his passionate love for the man he only thought he knew, Nyswaner recounts his dissolute indulgence in drugs, drink, and hustlers, revealing a self-destructive lifestyle of which hunky Johann is only a part. Some may turn away from the book's graphic, but always compelling, scenes of drug use, self-degradation, and mutilation, but others may take comfort in the fact that someone so deeply sunk in a cycle of despair and destruction bounced back to tell his tale. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
"A brilliant and inspirational vision of love, death and spiritual redemption in 20th Century America. Ron Nyswaner's account of his struggle with real life demons great and small is gripping, harrowing and sometimes shockingly intimate. It is heartbreaking and yes-it is also very, very funny indeed. It delivers an emotional intensity that fiction, by comparison, can only hope to achieve."-Jonathan Demme
"Ron Nyswaner's courageous and exquisitely written memoir speaks to us all on the mysteries of whom we love and why. The book reminds me most of Somerset Maugham's classic, Of Human Bondage-for true passion has an involuntary nature, so well depicted here. Ron Nyswaner is a poet of the secret self, and his first book marks a stellar debut."-Laura Shaine Cunningham, author of Sleeping Arrangements, Beautiful Bodies, A Place In the Country, and Dreams of Rescue
A wrong turn down a one-way street in the shadow of the Sunset Strip's Chateau Marmont leads Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia, Soldier's Girl) on a journey that will nearly drown him in the intoxicating, impulsive, maddening, tragic, and transformative nature of love. Despite the success of his latest film, Ron has been fighting depression and contemplating self-destruction. "I don't want a mediocre, empty life," he tells his psychiatrist-acupuncturist-herbalist after halfheartedly attempting to hang himself with a belt. Then, on a trip from his home in upstate New York to Los Angeles, Ron meets and falls for world-weary Johann, a Latin-quoting, leather-clad hustler with a vague, European accent. In the next year Johann will teach him many things: how to make a crack pipe out of a soda can, how to come down from a crystal meth binge, how to walk down a city street as if he owns it, how to beg for "more" in Hungarian, and how to lose oneself utterly in reckless passion. If he can survive it, loving Johann might be Ron's salvation.
Ron Nyswaner's screenplays include Mrs. Soffel, Swing Shift (uncredited,) Gross Anatomy, Love Hurts, Philadelphia, (for which he received an Academy award nomination and nominations for Golden Globe, BAFTA and Writers' Guild awards), and the Showtime film Soldier's Girl which was honored with a Peabody award and Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Nyswaner is also the author of the play Oblivion Postponed, and has written for the New York Times, The Advocate and The Los Angeles Times. His adaptation of The Painted Veil goes into production in 2005, with Edward Norton and director Caroline Link.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Fifteen minutes later I was backing out of the parking lot. Johann sat beside me, jamming his storm trooper boots against the dashboard. He shook off my suggestion to use the seat belt. When I reminded him he was breaking the law, he snorted, "I thought America was a free country." He strapped himself in and sank into a black mood. "My friend is not home," he said. "I have no drugs for you. By the way, they are against the law too."
Suddenly the Filipino valet was running toward us, waving his arms and shouting in his native tongue. I panicked. Had he overheard Johann's comment about drugs? "What is he saying?" I asked. Johann shrugged. Apparently, Tagalog was not one of his five languages. I kept the car sliding backwards, hoping to escape. But the tiny, brown-skinned valet threw himself onto the hood. Johann gripped my leg.
"Ronnie, stop."
I obeyed and the Filipino's head clunked against the windshield. Johann gestured for me to look out the window toward the rear of the car. I saw a line of metal teeth across the parking lot entrance and one of those signs that prepares you for SEVERE TIRE DAMAGE. The valet had been trying to warn me.
"I'm sorry!" I shouted. I started the car toward the clearly designated exit, tossing a twenty out the window to appease him. Johann laughed so hard he gripped his sides.
"Oh, Ronnie! Ronnie! You are crazy!" Johann squeezed my leg again. Aroused, I turned the wrong way onto a one-way street. Johann unsnapped his seat belt. "I don't think we worry about breaking the law tonight! I will get you drugs, no problem! Maybe I will do some too. Go down to Santa Monica Boulevard," he commanded, referring to the famous avenue that is ground zero for street hustlers. "I'm sure you know where that is, don't you, Ronnie?"
We cruised Fairfax toward Santa Monica, where prostitutes in ragged, cut-off jeans and tank shirts clustered at bus stops and fast-food joints. Johann categorized them: "Trash. Drug addicts. They let a man fuck them without a condom for fifty bucks. Idiots. No future. No brains. No class. Keep driving east, Ronnie. I am looking for a friend who will get us drugs. He is German too. His name is Fred. I think he got out of jail last week."
I ventured a personal question: "How long have you been doing this?"
"What?" he spit back, defiantly.
"Well, you know... Your work. Being a, um..."
Johann rapped his knuckles against the molded plastic dashboard. "Ronnie. I don't think you are very important if they give you such a lousy car."
Before I could defend myself, Johann spotted his drug-dealing friend. "Pull over, that's Fred. The one on crutches."
With Fred and his crutches in the back, we followed his directions toward Hollywood Boulevard. Fred was a scrawny kid with frizzy blond hair under a red bandana, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt with the American flag. He looked as if he was going to a costume party as a heroin addict from the 1970s. "Yeah, yeah, I can get you powder," he said, in an accent thicker than Johann's.
Johann made introductions. "Fred, this is Ronnie. He is a terrible driver. You will probably die tonight. I hope you have made a confession recently."
"I never confess to anything!" Fred proclaimed. "I take my secrets to the grave. I just got out of jail. You know what happens in jail to people who confess? They get their hearts cut out with a shiv."
Johann rolled his eyes. "Fred. It was a joke. Ronnie, turn right at the corner. But first, stop at the red light. Good boy." I wondered if Johann spoke to everyone as if they were retarded children.
Fred directed us through the traffic of Hollywood Boulevard to a side street and a group of young black men lingering outside the Starview Hotel that offered rooms with three adult channels.
"Give me some money, Ronnie." I handed over two hundred dollars. Johann returned half. "Too much."
"But I want to make sure we get enough."
Johann held firm. "I have school tomorrow. I am sure you have to work. Let Johann take care of you tonight, okay?"
Tonight and forever, I thought. I wanted to kiss him and I wanted to cry. Johann put one hundred dollars into Fred's bony hand. "One gram, Fred."
Fred leaned close. "Listen. These are Crips. I can do business with them. I joined their gang in jail."
Johann was delighted. "Oh yes, I am sure you are a Crip, Fred. You are a big Crip. You are the president of the Crips, I believe."
Fred spoke gravely. "They don't know me as Fred. I have a gang name. They call me Gestapo." Johann put his hand over his heart as he laughed. Fred continued, "You must call me Gestapo."
"No, I am sorry," Johann said, still laughing. "I must call you Fred. Go do business, Fred. Don't cheat me, Fred, or I will kill you, Fred. Goodbye, Fred." Johann shut the door and Fred hobbled away.
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