The Tonya Tapes: The Tonya Harding Story in Her Own Voice

by Lynda D. Prouse, Tonya Harding

Based on the candid and sometimes startling conversations that you were never meant to hear, The Tonya Tapes, written by award-winning author Lynda D. Prouse, chronicles the life of the world's most infamous female athlete—Tonya Harding—revealing for the first time the whole truth of her difficult and amazing life on and off the ice. Based on actual, extensive interviews with Tonya Harding, and written with her collaboration, this is her story!

Genres: Nonfiction

296 pages, Paperback

First published April 21, 2008

Reviews

[Annette · Rating 2 out of 5]

My goodness...hometown girl is back! Must read!
Finally got the book for $.99 on Amazon. Holy crap this is poorly "written"! It's just a woman who literally tape recorded telephone conversations with Tonya Harding, then transcribed them. Even interjecting her own questions/comments like "That must have been very traumatic." "What ever happened to him?"

You serious? You call that writing? That is not writing. Someone should not be allowed to have a "by" line if you simply transcribe telephone conversations. It's like saying I wrote a book about my mom because I typed down one of her crazy voice mails about the CIA planting a microchip in her throat so the government knows how much she spends on Medicare.

But...I love Tonya Harding...so back to the "book"....

Update. I have finished this "book" a/k/a "transcript." Lynda Prouse is a total loser and should not be able to classify herself an author. I am sad that Tonya Harding was not afforded a true author who could actually give her sympathetic story a more deserving telling.

My fellow Goodreaders, Tonya Harding has been given a bum deal. A bad rap. She has been physically and sexually abused by husbands and boyfriends and relatives. After she overheard Jeff Gilloly talking to the metal bar-wiedling "Shawn" about the Kerrigan attack, Jeff set up a three-man gang rape of Tonya while holding a gun to the back of her head and saying they would kill her if she cooperated with the FBI's investigation. WTF!?!?
After that, the US Skating Association has issued a life-long ban on Harding from participating in either amatuer and professional skating competitions and performances. The Association has forbidden her from coming to competitions and performances to watch and assist any of her skating students. Therefore Tonya, whose only skill is skating, is a bum for life. She's broke.

How can you do this to the first woman to ever perform the Triple Axel? Hm? HOW? A truly sad life. And a truly pathetic book.

[Kierstyn Moncrief · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the few books I couldn’t finish after getting about half way through. As others have said, it’s written word for word as a Q&A sessions between the author and Tonya. It makes the book hard to follow and seem disorganized.

[Ellen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not well-written. I think Prouse and Harding would both have been better-served had the book been released as a traditional prose narrative rather than a transcript of an interview. Capturing every "um" and interruption, every moment of incorrect grammar, every instance in which Harding didn't recall the exact details of an event from her past--it all adds up to the exact opposite of what Prouse and Harding claimed they wished to achieve by publishing this book. The reason I wanted to read this is because of the documentary The Price of Gold and Sarah Marshall's article on Harding and Kerrigan for The Believer. But this book, for all its length, doesn't do nearly as much good for Harding as Marshall's relatively short article does. It's just disappointing.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book consists of lightly edited interview transcripts the author conducted with Tonya Harding in the late 90s and early/mid aughts, originally intended to be used for a ghostwritten memoir until "the hubcap incident" lead to the book deal tanking. Or something like that. Prouse comes to the project with more figure skating knowledge than knowledge of Tonya's environment, I think; whereas I come to this book with more knowledge of Tonya's environment in Oregon than figure skating knowledge. And that's mostly why I follow Tonya—she skated at the shopping mall my family frequented each week as I grew up, and Tonya and I even shared an English teacher, albeit a few years apart. During her career I felt like she was someone the community could boast about, until of course things got really bonkers and then I didn't know what to think. Back to the book though: I learned of this book through the podcast You're Wrong About—one of the hosts made a bit of a splash a while back by writing about Tonya as a misunderstood 90s woman. Because of that and other readings (including the NY Times interview with Tonya when I, Tonya was released a few years ago) there weren't any big shocks in here to me.

That said, I think the book itself has some issues. Even though there is a named publisher, I suspect this is at heart a self-published work. In the first edition the photo on the front is pixelated but the photo and cover manage to look even worse for the second edition. (I had the good fortune to get my hands on a copy of each.) There are some formatting hiccups, which are noticeable but not unusually distracting, along with a couple of instances of the wrong form of "your." When Tonya mentions the town of Milwaukie, Oregon, it is misspelled in that same irritating way that communicates to a local that you're really new to town, suggesting that even place names weren't checked. In the photo plate section, two photos of Tonya captioned as being taken at Lloyd Center when the background is clearly showing the ice rink at Clackamas Town Center. Attention to detail matters, and it's stuff like this that undermines the believability of the larger story that's being told by its subject. It's really sad to me, because I do think Tonya's perspective deserves far more legitimacy than what this book turned out to be.

The author did, however, conclude the final chapter perfectly, with a parting thought courtesy of Tonya:
Gosh—well, you said, "What is the biggest misconception?" I guess the biggest misconception is that I'm not an animal. I am just human. There are so many people out there that make me to be this bad person. But, you know, they've got their fingers pointing out. If you're human, you should at least have one of those fingers pointing back at yourself, too. There is no one is who is perfect."

[Tyeisha Crook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh.

It was decent, but hard to follow at points. Some of the questions seemed just pointless...but gave a good look at the inside story. 3/5.

[Rykkar · Rating 3 out of 5]

My comfort character

[Cara Wittich · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not what I was hoping for. Less memoir, more transcription of recorded phone conversations. Interesting subject, disappointing execution.

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

BORING.