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Door to Door
In this edgy, frenetic fictionalized memoir, a small-town girl turned linchpin of the Los Angeles club scene draws on her intoxicating but conflicted years working the door of Hollywood's hottest clubs to pen a striking story of ambition, loss, and love.
After growing up in idyllic Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, seventeen-year-old Tobi leaves behind a childhood that was anything but idyllic and chases her dreams of modeling to New York. When the Big Apple turns out to be a bust, Tobi finds her way to L.A. and to the fringes of the film world elite. Hungry for an "in" she gets busy barhopping, party-going, and producer-hunting, eventually falling into a beautiful but complicated relationship with a famous actor. Though her own acting career never takes off, a chance encounter lands her a job working the door of an old friend's club. A whole new world opens up.
Raw and revealing, Door to Door is both an unprecedented glimpse into the L.A. club scene and the riveting story of a girl who puts it all on the line for her chance to become somebody.
After growing up in idyllic Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, seventeen-year-old Tobi leaves behind a childhood that was anything but idyllic and chases her dreams of modeling to New York. When the Big Apple turns out to be a bust, Tobi finds her way to L.A. and to the fringes of the film world elite. Hungry for an "in" she gets busy barhopping, party-going, and producer-hunting, eventually falling into a beautiful but complicated relationship with a famous actor. Though her own acting career never takes off, a chance encounter lands her a job working the door of an old friend's club. A whole new world opens up.
Raw and revealing, Door to Door is both an unprecedented glimpse into the L.A. club scene and the riveting story of a girl who puts it all on the line for her chance to become somebody.
- GenresNonfiction
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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January 18, 2018
Every review of this book quotes (is) the jacket blurp; “edgy, frenetic fictionalised (spelled with a z) memoir...” but I didn’t find the book frenetic so much as disjointed and all over the place. Not so much edgy as just full of swearing and the word f*** every few lines, as expletive, noun and verb, and references to blow-jobs. Is that edgy?
It is actually a heartbreakingly sad book. Like Go Ask Alice in some ways. It’s about a young woman who is sexually assaulted twice, promiscuous, depressed, drinking and smoking too much weed and working in what appears to be a glamorous world but is actually her single-mindedly manipulating her way to her dream of stardom, which she doesn’t achieve in the book. It’s a shallow telling of her story, superficial and flippant, but reading between the lines is tragic. She skips through her #metoo moments, glazes over sleeping with movie stars/directors and her clearly depths of depression days are interspersed with unfinished philosophical musings about God, forgiveness and salvation, which we’re not sure she finds.
I read the book quickly, skim reading occasionally, as her writing style - if indeed it was all her - annoyed me. There were four “voices” in the writing, which skips from screenplay/script to prose for no apparent reason. Occasionally there will be a paragraph with a more measured, voice, beautiful descriptive artistic style, uses of literature and flow of words... then back to f-this, f-that and almost stream of consciousness unedited darkness and filth. She is repetitive, the storyline jumps back and forth present, past, recent past, and loops of thought. Sloppy and confusing.
Then we come to Henry. The thinly veiled kiss-and-tell about a Canadian ice hockey player, Hawaiian, beautiful, quiet, graceful, a bassist in a band, otherworldly and - back in the 90s - grungy and just becoming a megastar travelling to Nepal (Little Buddha)?? Oh come on!!! But despite signposting him, even excerpts of the story with him in are unfinished, like many storylines, she just cuts off. With Charlotte, the Christian, you have half a page of anxiety about speaking to her and then just “hello” in script form then switch to something else. Usually a rant.
Sadly for “Tobs” nothing in this book makes you like her. She’s an unlikeable, shallow, manipulative/using fame-grubber. She lied, blagged, slept her way into a society where she cared little for anything or anything but herself. She admits that, but doesn’t really change. She speaks of crossroads a number of times and wilfully takes the road of selfish ambition each time. She uses the word “surviving” and there is an element of that but she turns her back on even her mother, uses her, her brother, her friends... but in a way, a begrudging way, I sort of admire her/her character (how much is memoir, how much fiction?) for overcoming poverty, abuse, being on her own, making it as far as she did, even though her motives and drive are sketchy, she does survive, she does just rely on herself. But at what cost and for what? I never understood blinkered and unflinching ambition to “fame.”
I understand the author is happily married today with a luxury brand of artisanal chocolates, candles and fragrances so clearly there’s a shrewd head on her shoulders and she has succeeded despite her past (this book) and her dyslexia and failing. Maybe she did find her absolution and cleansing in God and forgave herself but I’m surprised this book got published. However a “tell-all” expose of behind the scenes in Hollywood is exactly what everyone wants; to judge the people there and be just like Tobi, hungry for the dirt.
It is actually a heartbreakingly sad book. Like Go Ask Alice in some ways. It’s about a young woman who is sexually assaulted twice, promiscuous, depressed, drinking and smoking too much weed and working in what appears to be a glamorous world but is actually her single-mindedly manipulating her way to her dream of stardom, which she doesn’t achieve in the book. It’s a shallow telling of her story, superficial and flippant, but reading between the lines is tragic. She skips through her #metoo moments, glazes over sleeping with movie stars/directors and her clearly depths of depression days are interspersed with unfinished philosophical musings about God, forgiveness and salvation, which we’re not sure she finds.
I read the book quickly, skim reading occasionally, as her writing style - if indeed it was all her - annoyed me. There were four “voices” in the writing, which skips from screenplay/script to prose for no apparent reason. Occasionally there will be a paragraph with a more measured, voice, beautiful descriptive artistic style, uses of literature and flow of words... then back to f-this, f-that and almost stream of consciousness unedited darkness and filth. She is repetitive, the storyline jumps back and forth present, past, recent past, and loops of thought. Sloppy and confusing.
Then we come to Henry. The thinly veiled kiss-and-tell about a Canadian ice hockey player, Hawaiian, beautiful, quiet, graceful, a bassist in a band, otherworldly and - back in the 90s - grungy and just becoming a megastar travelling to Nepal (Little Buddha)?? Oh come on!!! But despite signposting him, even excerpts of the story with him in are unfinished, like many storylines, she just cuts off. With Charlotte, the Christian, you have half a page of anxiety about speaking to her and then just “hello” in script form then switch to something else. Usually a rant.
Sadly for “Tobs” nothing in this book makes you like her. She’s an unlikeable, shallow, manipulative/using fame-grubber. She lied, blagged, slept her way into a society where she cared little for anything or anything but herself. She admits that, but doesn’t really change. She speaks of crossroads a number of times and wilfully takes the road of selfish ambition each time. She uses the word “surviving” and there is an element of that but she turns her back on even her mother, uses her, her brother, her friends... but in a way, a begrudging way, I sort of admire her/her character (how much is memoir, how much fiction?) for overcoming poverty, abuse, being on her own, making it as far as she did, even though her motives and drive are sketchy, she does survive, she does just rely on herself. But at what cost and for what? I never understood blinkered and unflinching ambition to “fame.”
I understand the author is happily married today with a luxury brand of artisanal chocolates, candles and fragrances so clearly there’s a shrewd head on her shoulders and she has succeeded despite her past (this book) and her dyslexia and failing. Maybe she did find her absolution and cleansing in God and forgave herself but I’m surprised this book got published. However a “tell-all” expose of behind the scenes in Hollywood is exactly what everyone wants; to judge the people there and be just like Tobi, hungry for the dirt.
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