HOW TO MAKE LOVE LIKE A PORN STAR: A Cautionary Tale

With its wit (the book is dedicated to Onan), its victim narrative (multiple sexual assaults), its celebrity dish (Howard Stern is actually well endowed), and its frank, one-fisted prose style ("After three hours of sweaty, psychotic sex, she handed me a huge black strap-on"), the queen of porn's autobiography is destined to become a lowbrow classic. Jameson's career began at 16, when she fell for Jack, a tattoo artist. At a party, Jack's neo-Nazi uncle raped Jameson. Unable to face her father, a Las Vegas cop, she moved in with Jack. Within a year, she went from high school cheerleader to stripper to nude model to porn actress, with a stop along the way to become a crack addict. Jameson's life wasn't so much a downward spiral as a freefall into darkness. But, as the porn world would have it, the harder she fell, the more everyone wanted her, and she quickly became a top nude model and porn star, and the country's highest-paid feature dancer, all while leaving a path of carnage worthy of several rock bands. Beneath Jameson's monstrous diva exterior, however, was a girl who just wanted to become a loving mother and wife. After many failures, she finally succeeded, and her X-rated book ends on an uplifting family-values note. Jameson's life was a mess, and with its multiple formats (interview transcripts, movie scripts, advice sidebars, diary entries, cartoon strips), so is this book. But it's a remarkably appealing and honest mess, and should earn Jameson some of the mainstream acceptance she so clearly desires. Photos. Agent, Resource Media Group/L. Perkins Agency. (On sale Aug. 17)

Forecast: A VH1 special on Jameson airing August 16, a first serial in Rolling Stone and Jameson's pouty face on the jacket ensure this book will take off.