Her scandalous tenure in the skin trade--undeniably the sole basis for her infamy and subsequent legitimate career--is glossed over here in a few score pages, with more attention paid to the heavy-metal musicians that dotted her life than the motivations and machinations of the Feds who literally changed her life; Slash's snake gets more ink here than Attorney General Ed Meese. Quick to ladle generous sympathy on her own plight, she heaps little but scorn upon those from the seedy past of her porn-star alter-ego, yet seems to have had few qualms about formally adopting that moniker as her legal name. --Jerry McCulley

Traci Lords: Underneath It All

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"I sat down in the school cafeteria with the day's offering of mystery meat and Jell-O on my lunch tray. I tried to ignore the table of jocks snickering behind me when one of them approached with a nudie magazine in hand. SMACK! ... it landed on my table. On the cover was a young girl in a pleated skirt with her hands over her breasts. I choked on my food. Oh my God, it was me!"

How does a teenager go from high school sophomore to the most recognized porn star in the world overnight? And why?Twelve-year-old Nora Kuzma traveled with her mother and three sisters to southern California in search of a stable life. But years of sexual abuse and parental neglect drove her onto the streets of Hollywood and straight to the door of a nude modeling agency.

Struggling to survive, she assumed the name Traci Lords and became a Penthouse centerfold. By age fifteen she was a world-famous porn queen drowning in a sea of sex, drugs, and lies until the FBI raided her home just days after her eighteenth birthday.

Traci Lords: Underneath It All is the powerful, uncensored, and inspirational story of how one young girl made peace with her past and triumphed over impossible odds to become a successful actress, recording artist, and, most improbably of all, a happy and healthy woman.

FROM THE CRITICS

USA Today

… Lords' story of personal redemption is so immersed in genuine emotion and beaming with soulful resiliency that the reader will walk away with nothing but respect for her and her remarkable journey. — Amanda Tyler

Publishers Weekly

Mention the author of this notable memoir to a group of men and many will grin; mention her to a group of women and many will look blank. Both responses should change during the media frenzy over this book, because readers of both sexes will learn that the story of Lords, the most notorious graduate of the porn industry, is one deserving of compassion, admiration and attention. Lords is notorious because when she ruled porn, in the mid-1980s, she was under the age of 18. Born Nora Kuzma in 1968 in Ohio, she writes, she was raised in poverty and abused emotionally by an alcoholic father and raped at age 10 by a 16-year-old. By her early teens, Lords was hanging out with the wild crowd at school and was preyed upon by her mother's boyfriend, who arranged for her first modeling sessions, which led to her posing as a Penthouse centerfold at age 15 (she had false ID) and then to her meteoric career in porn, which crashed when the FBI stepped in and turned her into a poster child for sex abuse. Lords's career didn't end in 1986; she's gone on to star and costar in several films and TV shows, including John Waters's Cry Baby and Married with Children, and has enjoyed serious success as a singer. She has an amazing story to tell, and she tells it well here, without a coauthor, in prose that's bumpy at times, smooth at others, but always seemingly honest and courageous. Frank, opinionated, intelligent, drenched in emotion, this is the rare celebrity memoir that doubles as a cautionary tale, and will have readers cheering Lords on as they speed through its gritty, big-souled pages. (July 8) Forecast: Expect high interest in this title. With vigorous promo-including a 7-city tour, Dateline, Larry King, Montel Williams, Extra-and Lords's built-in fan base, sales will be brisk. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Wary, defiant, not a little defensive, and not a little pissed off, Lords recaptures her youthful voice as she excavates all the rocks on her road from underage porn star to singer and actress. She hailed from a low-rent Ohio mill town, product of a drunken father and a feckless mother, soon divorced. Sexually abused by one of her mother¿¿¿s boyfriends, she fled home at 15. To make money, she agreed to do some nude posing (she was still only 15 when Penthouse featured her as a centerfold), and from there it was an alarmingly simple step to pornographic movies. She captures this dark and rotten world with all its ambiguities—and hers: "[Porn] allowed me to release all the fury I'd felt my entire life. And that's what got me off." But it was hardly a joyous milieu; drugs and booze calmed her, while a series of wretched relationships gave her glancing moments of security. Federal agents finally started giving child pornography the scrutiny it deserved, but the actors, not the producers, bore the public brunt of their investigation. Still a teenager, Lords pulled in the reins and, remarkably, engineered her own reversal of fortune. With a self-control that invites admiration, she got roles in R-rated flicks, worked her way up to John Waters movies, and then a sequence of TV and film roles. As if out of nowhere (it¿¿¿s not clear where she discovered her musical talent), she charged to the top of the charts as a techno queen, meanwhile grabbing roles in Melrose Place and Roseanne, all the while contending with her past as a porn star. If on occasion Lords sounds a wee superficial ("Howard Fine's annual Christmas party was a must appear, so I searched my closet for a festive frock"), you cansee she knows how to play the Hollywood survival game. Her personal tenacity is something of a miracle, and readers of this honest, engaging memoir will wish the author well.