Face the Music: A Life Exposed
Most people will probably not associate sensitivity with the flamboyant heavy-metal rock band KISS, and yet in his memoir, front man, rhythm guitarist, and cofounder Paul Stanley succeeds in making a connection with the reader, KISS fan or not. Born with microtia, a deformity that left him deaf in his right ear, Stanley felt like “a freak.” His stage makeup (heavy white face paint with a star around his right eye), therefore, functioned as a mask that hid his doubts and insecurities and turned him into a larger-than-life persona, Starchild, which served, he explains, as “a defense mechanism to cover up who I really was.” Stanley discusses his childhood growing up lonely and friendless in Manhattan and Queens, and the pivotal night when he saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show  and realized that music would be the “vehicle” to lead him out of his misery. He also writes about his fellow band members, the ups-and-downs of stardom, and the decadent rock-star lifestyle, coming across through it all as likable and down-to-earth. --June Sawyers