I got the impression from Devil's Guide to Hollywood that Joe Eszterhas said everything he had to say in his memoir Hollywood Animal and that seems to be the case reading this. He covers old ground - the schizophrenia of his brother in law, his "redemption" via throat cancer, leading an anti smoking crusade, his mother's illness and death, his father's Antisemitism. He refers to the fact that he wrote Showgirls and Basic Instinct a lot - I sense he misses fame/being important.
To be fair there's some new stuff - about his battle to try and be a good Christian despite a lifetime of getting in conflict. He talks about attempts to make films - pitched a show about a tough priest, tried to get up another project - and none really work except Children of Glory. He says Hollywood kept at him to do violent/sexy films but he refused. He also took a $1.5 million cheque from the sequel to Basic Instinct.
He writes about his priests (including a black one from Uganda who he calls "Father Africa"), people who hassle him with scripts, his not particularly interesting domestic life, bullying a teacher who dared let his son study rap music, getting upset at religious connotations given to Le Bron James playing basketball. He mentions his admiration for Passion of the Christ and refers to Mel Gibson's arrest and Antisemitic outbursts while drunk... making his later collaboration with Gibson very ironic.
The most moving section involves his relationship with his daughter who was adopted out in the 1960s who has two girls with a degenerative condition. I googled them (couldn't resist) and at least one is still alive and doing well, I hope the other is too. When the book was written though he was still estranged from his daughter Suzi.
There's really not enough material in this for a book. It should have been a long article. But it's of interest.
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