Mickey Rourke Fans Unite!

First off thanks so much Anna for this opportunity to speak about my work and to write on this blog!

Stand Alone: The Films Of Mickey Rourke is a book that is far much more than a typical biography-it is a study of one of the most interesting, diverse and progressive bodies of work in the history of filmaking. It's a study of a fiercely independent person who has helped mould an acting style that has been mimicked, bastardised and ripped off in some shape or form through the years. In short Mickey Rourke makes a compelling figure and his story is a cautionary one. That's what I wanted to do with my book-to dig beneath the surface and I started by asking myself : What does a Mickey Rourke fan like myself really want to see in a book about him??

Since the astonishing success of 'The Wrestler' it would be far too easy to take the simple road of taking that film as the fulcrum by which to measure his ups and downs; rather I took it as the beacon to work backwards and to find out what made this particular actor tick-where his influences were drawn from and what made him so compelling.

So I started right off the bat thinking about his acting style, his contribution to movies, exhaustive reviews of the films (every single one), analysis, discussion and interpretation. I wanted to make my book a 'coffee table' book in the sense that if you were round a table with like minded individuals discussing the movies and Rourke's contribution to them over the years-you'd come up with with the kind of arguments/discussion/agreements that had arisen through my own discussion in the book.

So often biographies reveal far too little about the subject, and more importantly don't really try to scratch under the surface to understand what makes the subject so compelling. I wanted to shuffle the deck so to speak, to make this a book that looks at his colourful exploits from the outside because ultimately that wasn't what was important or vital to me-what was essential was why Mickey Rourke is an actor so many of his peers look up to and why fans of his work have been dismayed by the biographies written about him thus far.

Sure it would be easy to list off his accomplishments one by one and offer some piecemeal analysis but the real Mickey Rourke fan wants more than that-I've been a fan of his work for over 15 years, collected his films when it wasn't fashionable and seen some of his lesser known movies when they would be the only video left in the store. Through those years I quickly understood what made him compelling and unique and knew that there was an audience of fans as frustrated by his (then) career paralysis and who also like me, knew the hard times would be overcome and that a role like 'The Wrestler' was out there in the future.

So I took the time now to write something that spoke to those fans because this is ultimately a book by a fan for the fans and for anybody who wondered why Rourke's talent was in stasis for so long.

The feedback thus far has been absolutely tremendous and above anything I expected because of the people leaving reviews on Amazon or dropping me emails-they've understood it and what I mean by 'it' is that they could hear a voice inside my head onto paper that mirrored their own thoughts-they too wanted a biography about the man that didn't just treat Mickey Rourke like he was born after he played Randy The Ram-but rather an actor who tore the 80's movie circuit apart, who was a trailblazer for an acting style that was the natural offspring from the sensibilities of Brando, Clift and Dean and who set about making 'personal' work knowing full well that 'only six people would come to see it'

So I believe anybody with even a passing interest of Mickey Rourke would really be rewarded by reading this book, if only to be enthused about picking up a film that they might not have heard of and realising just how good he was in it-certainly that's what has won over a lot of the readers and I hope anybody reading this blog may realise that a biography isn't about going from A to Z but rather starting in the middle and beginning with the end in mind.

To help promote the book and also to give the fans a website away from the norm, I constructed a website www.mickey-rourke.com to provide reviews on the book, music links, pictures, a dedicated blog and even some rare videos.

In terms of my other work I've published a more straight forward biography of 'Jaws' actor Roy Scheider as well as poetry and general fiction, my bookstore website link is: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/masterd48

'Stand Alone: The Films Of Mickey Rourke' is available on Amazon and Lulu on paperback, download and Kindle formats