Over the Edge

Robert Downey Jr., Warren Beatty, Mike Tyson, Rudolf Nureyev, Norman Mailer, Barry Levinson, David Begelman, Harvey Keitel, Robert DeNiro, Leonardo DeCaprio, Alec Baldwin, George Cukor, Quentin Tarantino, Bob Evans, Brooke Shields, Jim Brown, William Styron, Carroll Baker, Tennessee Williams, Francois Truffaut, Faye Dunaway, Neve Campbell, Don Simpson, Eugene Fodor, Leonard Bernstein, Nastassja Kinski, Alain Delon, Brett Ratner, Ben Stiller, Nick Jarecki, Sienna Miller, Jean Luc Godard, Taki, Michael Mailer, Francis Ford Coppola, Pauline Kael, Roman Polanski, Andrew Stein, Claudia Schiffer, Jack Kerouac, Tony Sirico, Woody Allen, Tisa Farrow, Lucy Saroyan, Xan Cassavetes, James Caan, Karel Reisz, Hooman Majd, Wu-Tang Clan, and George Clooney. It is hard to imagine a single person whose life has intersected with each of these people in a unique and significant way, but the life of filmmaker and author (and, to a lesser degree, actor and producer) James Toback has. Over the Edge: Movies, Madness, Gambling, and Other Celestial Pleasures is a memoir that reads like an epic, encompassing nearly every aspect of modern life from the 1960s to the present. Each of the wide range of stories within this memoir tells us something new and fundamental about the themes of modern life: sex, romance, ambition, film, sports, acting, money, politics, fame, prison, and death. By propelling himself into the center of contemporary culture without inhibition or borders, Toback takes the reader on an irresistible tour not just of his own complex thoughts and adventures but of the minds and actions of his fascinating and accomplished companions.