Hi, Scott!
Here's a link to my review of "Dungeon of Death:"
www.associatedcontent.com/article/1249534/wwe_chris_benoit_book_review_dungeon.html
I was hoping I could plug my own book, "This Side of the Mic." It's the story of how I became a pro wrestling announcer 15 years ago. It's full of stories from the Pittsburgh and Cleveland indies, as well as when I announced during the early years of Ring of Honor.If your readers would like to purchase an autographed copy, they can e-mail me at gormanwriter@yahoo.com. I'll give them a discount if they say they heard of the book from Scott Keith. I sent you one, too, so I hope you enjoy it. Thanks!
Good luck with the book, and thanks for the review!
Just got finished with this book, and have to say I enjoyed it much more than I expected. I was expecting a huge write up on the Benoit murder suicide, which would have been difficult to read ( a bit like Martha Hart’s book) but it was actually really interesting and was more about wrestler deaths in general. Not necessarily a funny subject but there were some laughs in there.
Two things that bugged me though. Firstly, Dynamite didnt gow up in “the slums of Enland” as you say Scott. He grew up on a decent housing estate, full of honest working class people, not far from me. We do have slums but the Kid didnt grow up in them. He is just a bit nuts.
Second, and I didnt expect this, on some of the deaths you appeared to be saying “we cant be sure that he died from drugs, but he probably did”. Not those exact words but that seemed to be the point. Its the sort of comment i’d expect from a know nothing journo with an axe to grind, rather than an intelligent, long time fan of wrestling like yourself. I appreciate you dont have the same love you once had for wresltling, and that you were probably under severe time pressures to get the thing written but I found myself thinking you were being lazy at times saying that.
Having said that, I did enjoy the book and hope it sells well for you. Good luck!
On the subject of the drugs, there was shall we say a lengthy list of notes from the legal department that drastically altered the tone of certain passages from the time I wrote to the book to the time it hit shelves. We were quite surprised at how conservatively the legal department for the publisher wanted to play it when broaching that subject, and any time the topic was “such and such was on such and such” I had to make sure I either rewrote it or had documented evidence, to the point where I couldn’t even make my usual jokes about roided wrestlers or certain people smoking crack without getting a page of notes. It made my head hurt, frankly.
I can appreciate that, I guess its harder than I thought to write a book!