I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell
by Tucker Max
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Book Reviews of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell
Book Review: Boy gone wild
Summary: 3 Stars
Yes, Tucker is creepy. Yes, his writing is puerile, relying on cliches and ALL CAPS so often that after a while you are half expecting him to start tossing in emoticons. Yes, he treats women horribly. To make matters worse, he admits he is reprehensible as a disclaimer. But he always spares us the painful details that would hit home what his brand of abuse is all about. All the women he deals with are asking for it in some way, either through their loose morals or inflated self-opinions or extreme horniness or low IQs. And usually it is all of the above. Tucker's sex partners are never conquests. Most come to him with open arms and open legs.
But he never humanizes a sex partner. In one story Tucker beds a fat chick he picks up online through some poorly articulated dare/bet/homoerotic duty to his nameless and faceless Greek frat chorus of absolute buddies, the only people in his world that are real and interesting, lovable and loving. Tucker tosses the girls clothes out of his window and forces her to make a midnight run out of his apartment naked. He does this because he is faced with a choice: treat this woman like an animal or lose face in front of his roommates.
Great stuff. But I would have liked to have heard the woman's parting words, or a line from the email she sent him the next morning. Not because I wanted to see Tucker get what is coming to him. (As Tucker freely admists, God will take car of that.) Just because I require more in a narrative. As they stand, Tucker's stories (as most of the reviewers at Amazon have pointed our) have the effect of dirty jokebook jokes --shocking, worthy of a guffaw, but ultimately disposable. Tucker Max is a womanizer. But his biggest sin ultimately is his corniness. His stories may be true, but they are not real.
All this is not to say that I did not read the book from cover to cover in three sittings. Why? I won't call Tucker a hero, a zen alcoholic, but there is something a little fascinating in Tucker's choice to reject the sterile, career-centric, empty adulthood that most of us tolerate. Most dropouts and outlaws get rejected by society first. Tucker, on the other hand, had it all, looks, brains and a great education. A corporate legal career was his for the taking. He instead opted for a life dedicated to nickel wing nights, boilmakers when you are too drunk to stand and coming to in the morning with a stranger's thong on your carpet. The media sells the image of the party life; in reality very few have the stamina or moral black hole to live it. Tucker does.
Again, I am not saying that I have more than few ounces of respect for the man. One idiot reviewer has championed him as a free speech hero. What a load. Tucker's only value is that his exploits beg the scary question of whether adulthood really exists anymore. I believe it does, but I am not so sure after reading this book.
Book Review: That's all?
Summary: 3 Stars
You know how annoying it is when someone posts a Facebook status like: "I just had the best Orange Juice this morning!"? And you're thinking, "um...congratulations?" Well, now that same inanity has come to the publishing world. This guy actually writes about his love for the In-N-Out Double Double, EXTENSIVELY, as if he's the first person to discover it.
Don't get me wrong, these types of stories are hysterical ..... when you're in a bar and the person telling the story is your friend. Otherwise, who cares? Most people who've been to college have these same stories and they're only entertaining when you know the teller.
The dialogue isn't even kind of believable. Every zinger is set up perfectly by some unsuspecting bit player delivering the perfect 'straight' line immediately preceding.
Maybe the most annoying aspect is the author's habit of puffing himself. As most normal people know, if you're the real deal, you don't need to tell people you're the real deal. You let your work speak for itself. His puffery is a red flag that drains the credibility out of the stories. Not that I doubt that some version of these stories actually occurred. I'm sure they did. But the details--especially when the author relates what he supposedly said in a given situation, or how many beers he pounded on a random night in 1999--are obviously fabricated. He'll finish telling you that he was one sip away from passed-out-drunk, and then proceed to quote himself from a long, perfectly articulate punch line that allegedly had "the whole bar cracking up." Riiight.
As I thought more about the constant chest-thumping, it's probably just a schtick that appeals to a demographic. (There are those certain guys who just NEED a self-appointed 'alpha-male' to worship -- think Stevie Janowski from East Bound and Down. This is the book's demographic: social bottom feeders looking for a manual)
And finally, he tries to coin the term "Tucker Max Drunk" as if he's the only person who ever got really drunk/obnoxious. Take a second to appreciate how unintentionally funny that is.
But in the end I would recommend this book to anyone who secretly enjoys reality shows like Jersey Shore. It's got that interesting irony where the "stars" of the show think they're being admired in a positive way, but most of the viewers are just shaking their heads and smirking.
Book Review: Fun...and a Bit More
Summary: 4 Stars
What we have here is an XXX kiss and tell--well, actually I don't recall there being much in the way of kissing at all--it's a hardcore account of sex as the preferred form of social relations. No question that while it's fun for adults it is not something meant to be seen by children...under any circumstances.
Tucker Max is a clever, witty, and brave guy who once decided to put up a website to sing a song of himself, and, the rest, as they say is history. It's a Perez Hilton story except Tucker is a guy you'd actually want to know. Essentially, I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell is a celebrity memoir written by a non-celebrity. At least Tucker wasn't a celebrity at the time he began living this life (and recording it on paper). It remains surprising though that Tucker got his JD and never gave being a lawyer a serious thought, but based on the type of money he's made thus far with writing his decision is certainly defensible. He's probably earned more cash since 2006 than most of us make in a decade. And I say bravo to that.
This memoir is certainly harsh and demeaning in regards to the players involved and this includes both the men and the women. The way in which Tucker and his crew abuse their bodies is rather depressing. They hail from the "drinking is cool" school which is not a worldview to which I ascribe, but vicarious exposure to their antics is entertaining--especially, as the reader's own stomach and liver are not destroyed in the process.
Personally, I have no doubt that the events he describes are accurate. Women are not reputed to behave in this fashion, but, of course, they do. Generally, it's not with reputable guys, however. As we all know, bad boys forever pique female interest. Indeed, one can glean more about the nature of women from this book than they can most mainstream publications. By that I don't mean the negative terms by which Tucker depicts them as these are overstated and not descriptive of individuals. Rather, that girls love guys who present in the way he and his crew do is accurate and we find it affirmed again and again here in his account of their transactions. The media seek to deny this eventuality but the affairs of these fellows describe female sexuality in a far superior fashion than women themselves do. I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell is verboten and politically incorrect; which is precisely why it should be prized.
Book Review: How odd human beings are...
Summary: 4 Stars
I first came across Tucker Max's website in 2005. Tucker Max is one of those distinctly toxic and yet undeniably magnetic personalities that makes people everywhere wonder how such a thing is possible. He is a raging alcoholic and a colossal jerk who, through sheer force of charisma, manages to wrangle people of all kinds into his personal circle of adoration. His stories are all detailed descriptions of how this odd personal magnetism can keep him afloat in spite of an overwhelming flood of disaster he manages to inflict upon everyone he comes into contact with. They are also very, very funny.
In trying to describe Tucker Max to people, or at least my guarded affinity for his writing, I often have to describe it in terms of the three basic reactions people have to his writing. The first is the obvious reaction that he is simply a loathsome person who's number is clearly coming up and who is a repulsive example to all. The second is the even more obvious belief that he is the greatest person on earth and a roll model for the hedonistic, screw-all-ya'll lifestyle they desperately want to emulate.
The third view, one that I personally espouse and think that Max is actually shooting for, is simply a gonzo, almost Shakespearian portrait of human frailty. He is such a loathsome person in all respects, and yet his undeniable magnetism draws ostensibly intelligent, well heeled people too him. And who knows why? It is a portrait of the magnetism we all aspire to and the bizarre pull to disaster that we all succumb too without even knowing why.
In spite of his fratire style, Tucker Max is actually a good, relatively intelligent writer. He's obviously not at the level of his idol John Toole, but he does a good job of painting a portrait of a humanity that is, and always has been, simultaneously intelligent and completely idiotic for reasons that even they do not understand.
Book Review: God bless you, Tucker Max
Summary: 5 Stars
I happen to have had the great fortune to attend law school for two years with Tucker Max (I graduated in the class following his), and although I never had any particular interaction with him there I can assure you that the man tells the absolute truth. Even during his tenure at the school he was legend, constantly roiling the gossip networks and cheerfully rendering the rest of us less employable through indirect association with him. While he may never surpass a certain other alum in overall infamy (Richard M. Nixon), his transition to internet god can only be described as preordained. This book, an inevitable extension of Tucker's boundless and virulent ego, is an entertaining romp through all the frathouse experiences you wish you could forget, chaperoned by a man with no conscience and no regrets.
It is true that it is only a matter of time before Tucker Max dies at the age of 43 after his grotesquely swollen liver and prostate conspire to doom him. Our lives will be lessened at the loss. Tucker demonstrates, perhaps inadvertently, that the health of a democracy is best measured at its extremities. In everything from running roughshod over his fellow humans to defending, albeit for his own purposes, the fundamental First Amendment rights so many of the rest of us never truly exercise against the predations of self-appointed Internet censors, Tucker is self-contained, self-made, and self-supported in a manner few individuals in history have managed. He is the best and the worst of America, and could not have sprung from any other nation. You'll have to wade through a lot of get-drunk-grope-bimbo-fall-down stories to get there, but in the end I hope you appreciate the boundless scope and energy of such activities, as puerile and beer-stained as they individually appear. Tucker, keep on rocking in the free world.