Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent

by David Henry Sterry

Paperback, 2003

Status

Available

Call number

HQ146.L7 S74

Genres

Collection

Your library

Publication

HarperCollins (2003), Paperback, 256 pages

Description

I walk all the way up Hollywood Boulevard to Grauman's Chinese Theatre: past tourists snapping shots; wannabe starlets sparkling by in miniskirts with head shots in their hands and moondust in their eyes; rowdy cowboys drinking with drunken Indians; black businessmen bustling by briskly in crisp suits; ladies who do not lunch with nylons rolled up below the knee pushing shopping carts full of everything they own; Mustangs rubbing up against muscular Mercedes and Hell's Angels hogs. It's a sick twisted Wonderland, and I'm Alice. Here is a story like no other: The unforgettable chronicle of a season spent walking the razor-sharp line between painful innocence and the allure of the abyss. David Sterry was a wide-eyed son of 1970s suburbia, but within his first week looking for off-campus housing on Sunset Boulevard he was lured into a much darker world -- servicing the lonely women of Hollywood by night. Chicken--the word is slang for a young male prostitute--revisits this year of living dangerously, in a narrative of dazzling inventiveness and searing candor. Shifting back and forth from tales of Sterry's youth--spent in the awkward bosom of a disintegrating dysfunctional family--to his fascinating account of the Neverland of post--sixties sexual excess, Chicken teems with Felliniesque characters and set pieces worthy of Dionysus. And when the life finally overwhelms Sterry, his retreat from the profession will leave an indelible mark on readers' minds and hearts.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member peonygoat

A first hand account of a straight man’s life of prostitution and addiction.

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LibraryThing member stillbeing

I did enjoy reading this at the time, but now, after the whole James Frey incident, I'm very nervous of such memoirs. But true or not, it's an entertaining read about a confronting subject, written in a matter-of-fact style that's not entirely glamourous or gritty, but somewhere in between.

LibraryThing member burningtodd

An autobiography of a male prostitute in L.A. A great read. Written by David Henry Sterry, this is a book about his life in the streets of LA trying to make a living by selling himself. It is excellently written and it tells how he sort of fell into that life and didn’t really enjoy it, so he

didn’t last long, but made a lot of money at it.

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LibraryThing member bluepigeon

I received this book from Goodreads First Reads. Thanks!

Chicken is a slice of sparkling, sizzling, up-and-down nightmare of an adventure. Perhaps the best thing about it is that it is very well told. I like that there is a common childhood, some usual 17-year-old hormones pumping, and nothing

really too drastic, other than the first encounter the author finds himself in when he goes to Hollywood for college. It is, I do agree, a bit unbelievable that with $27 in his pocket, and a relatively normal family, he finds that he is "homeless." Either the definition of homeless needs to be revised, or, most likely, there was much more going on than the author is allowing himself to tell. I like that there are no sweeping judgements about any group of people (perhaps other than the fact that all rich women like to see their hunky boyman naked (well, and who can blame them?). I like that though he may not love being a "sex technician," the author enjoys sex and most of the sexual encounters, though this doesn't mean he loves it all.

As for the encounters (tricks) described, none of them seemed too weird or unusual or freaky or fringe to me. All pretty in line with the human condition. I am not sure if it was meant to be shocking. Perhaps will be shocking to those who thought Fifty Shades of Gray was groundbreaking; I doubt it will seem shocking or freaky to anyone who is remotely familiar with the realities of human sexuality and everything related to it.

Recommended to those who like well-written memoirs, fast-paced accounts, fried chicken, nuns, and chocolate-covered strawberries.

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LibraryThing member bookwormteri

I was very surprised that this young man was a sex worker for women. No what I was expecting at all. I wasn't crazy about the back and forth between the past and then present. It felt a little too disjointed for me. But it was an interesting read.

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