Product Description

The author, Andy Behrman, suffers from acute bipolar disorder and during the 80s lived out a stranger than fiction existence becoming involved in male prostitution, then the frenetic 80's art world. There he became involved in a forgery scam which landed him in prison. Eventually the disease was diagnosed and he was treated with repeated bouts of electroshock therapy. In turns hilarious and harrowing, this is a compulsive tale of someone who has tried and done everything, living life on the edges the rest of us only dreams about.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #457661 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Jerome Boyd Maunsell in The Times
This true story is remarkable.

Anthony Daniels in the Sunday Telegraph
The book...is compulsively readable...Electroboy is the story of a very modern lost soul

Melanie McGrath in The Evening Standard
...a humbling and, in the end, rather uplifting read

Customer Reviews

I'm still catching my breath!
For most of his life Andy has hidden his raging mania under a larger-than-life personality until he turns to art forgery. Then he became the subject of a New York scandal, jail & house arrest until, finally, when he knows he can no longer control himself, he opts for electroconvulsive therapy.

Andy Behrman, inspite of his mental illness, has written an engaging & exhausting, hilarious & horrifying memoir of where he came from, how it all started & what happened. How he moved from authentic into full throttle forgery - both in the field of his art dealing &, as the disease overwhelms him, in his life.

His monumental To Do List is a sign of things to come!

ELECTROBOY is a bit longer than needed. No excuses for the turmoil that tumbles out! You will find yourself holding your breath & then squeaking with relief tinged with chuckles. On & on he goes, round & round he swirls on highs so high he's looking down at the sky & then, in a blink, he's so at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, he can't see daylight.

Extra-ordinary, & a thought-provoking, memorable read! I will not look at my life the same way again!

A staggering book
`Electroboy' is the memoir of Andy Behrman: a PR man; an art fraudster; a habitual drug user; a man who is hyper-sexual and who has bi-polar disorder. The book follows him from his childhood through to adulthood and through misdiagnosis from seven psychiatrists. In his thirties, almost all drug combinations having failed, Behrman has electroconvulsive therapy (considered by most to be a last resort) and gradually begins to feel he is regaining some control.

This an incredible book, not least because it's written as if he is manic: darting from one thing to another, cramming in as many experiences and sensations as he can. At times, reading this book can be exhausting but it is an incredible story and at times extremely funny. If you're easily offended then it might not be one for you (there's plenty of detail about experiences with drugs and prostitutes in this book) but otherwise, it's highly recommended.

Flawed Character...Flawless Book
Whether or not you like this book will depend very much on whether you like Andy Behrman as a man. On one hand you could see him as a rich, self obssessed, spoilt, hypochondriac, therapy-addicted snob...but on the other, you simply cannot argue that he is an incredibly honest and funny man. Personally I thought the book was good enough to smother any dislike I had for the author (and believe me he doesn't always paint a very pretty picture of himself), the story itself reminded me a lot of Danny Sugarman's "Wonderland Avenue" (absolute class book by the way) in that its just such a great yarn about excess.