Title: Mildly interesting, mostly annoying and self-aggrandizing.
Product review: It's been about two years since I read this book, but its lingering effect is extreme irritation with the writer. Fritscher is clearly far more interested in himself than in Mapplethorpe, and boastfully uses the subject of his "biography" (term used charitably) as little more than a tool with which to broadcast his own (clearly exaggerated) influence on -- and involvement with -- the photographer. While I don't doubt that Fritscher played a small role in Mapplethorpe's life and art, I don't for a second believe that it was even a tiny fraction of what he'd like you to believe. Jack, you were one of a large pool of pornographers and one of an even more humongous population of RM's lovers. This bio reeks of little more than self-promotion and self-promoting fiction, and the fact that it was penned posthumously makes it even more disgusting and annoying.
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