For the first time, Tom Green--who shot to fame as host of MTV's "The Tom Green Show; starred in a hit movie; wrote and directed his own film, which was soundly trashed by the entertainment press; married and divorced Hollywood royalty; and suffered a very public, poignant, and even darkly comic battle with testicular cancer--tells the wild story of his unlikely journey from media darling to media punching bag and how he survived the Hollywood hype machine. Seven years ago, Tom Green was a skateboarding fanatic who lived with his parents in Canada, worked on comedy with his friends, and dreamed of becoming a talk-show host. He was doing a public access show up north when MTV heard about him and brought him to New York to see what he could do in the big city. Tom became an instant smash, slicing up dead raccoons on stage, introducing his parents to Monica Lewinsky in the middle of the night, and pioneering a type of shocking humor that begat "Jackass," Fear Factor, and other reality shows. In the next few years, Tom starred in the hilarious "Road Trip and three other movies ("Freddy Got Fingered, "Stealing Harvard, and "Charlie's Angels), married and divorced Drew Barrymore, and recorded his surgery for testicular cancer in a well-received, hysterical, and oddly moving documentary for MTV. But the fearless Canadian with the outrageous sense of humor, hit show, and tabloid-hyped marriage got a taste of the darker side of Hollywood, too, as the media that made him the toast of Tinseltown cut him down to size in the wake of his divorce, illness, and some professional bumps in the road. "Hollywood Causes Cancer not only tells the full story of Tom's wildly entertaining trip tocelebrity but is also an absorbing and even revelatory look at a dramatic, excessive, ruthless place called Hollywood, and how one man survived his journey into the heart of it all.

本書は、過激な笑いで時代を築いたトム・グリーンによる、狂気と真実が交錯する衝撃の手記です。ハリウッドという消費装置の中で使い捨てにされ、病や離婚という逆境に直面しながらも、笑いを武器に生き抜いた男の孤独な闘争が描かれています。自己を客観視する冷徹な視線と、剥き出しの人間味が共存する点に本作の文学的な凄みがあります。 映像では単なる狂人に見えた彼の姿が、本書で多層的な深みを帯びます。ＭＴＶの番組や闘病ドキュメンタリーの裏にあった葛藤が、テキストによる内面描写で切実な生存戦略へと昇華されています。映像の過激さと本書の独白が響き合うことで、メディアの虚構を撃ち抜く強烈なシナジーが生まれているのです。