Marilyn Manson cranked out this book in his first wave of Nineties stardom — on the verge of releasing Mechanical Animals. It’s a hilarious monument to drug-addled megalomania. He grows up as Brian Warner, a typical Midwest dork; as he admits, “If every cigarette you smoke takes seven minutes off your life, every game of Dungeons and Dragons you play delays the loss of your virginity by seven hours.” But he reinvents himself as the God of Filth, learning the rules of rock stardom (“if the girl has a tattoo with your name on it, then it’s just common courtesy to have sex with her”) and snorting lines off his Rolling Stone cover. He also includes a helpful checklist of ways to tell if you’re a drug addict: “You use the word ‘blow,’” “You’re friends with a model,” “You know the name for the fleshy crevice between your thumb and index finger.”
