page 9

15
16
17

stroturf is a novel � part black comedy, part literary thriller � in which much of
the action takes place in the gym and on online bodybuilding and steroid forums. I
know it sounds unlikely. But when I became acquainted with the subculture that
gathers around those sites, it was clear to me that most of the materials needed to
write about contemporary masculinity were focused there. There was an intensified
sense of physical life and the possibility of transformation. There were highly
charged relationships and codes of behaviour; there were specialised vocabularies
concerning weightlifting technique and performance-enhancing drugs. There was the
sense of online forums as spaces in which the performance of masculinity had to be
constantly reiterated. And there was the dedication to pursuits that to an outsider
seem crazy, pointless and excessive, yet have the utmost seriousness for those
involved.

After I had written Astroturf, but before it was published, it started to seem like
stories about anabolic steroids were all over the place. �Up to a million Britons
use steroids for looks not sport� ran the Guardian headline during the week in late
January when I was meeting production companies interested in acquiring screen
rights. It couldn�t have been more apt if my agent had planted the story. Then in
April, when the fatberg dwelling under the South Bank was autopsied, higher
concentrations of muscle-boosting supplements than of recreational drugs were
found. My sense that the topic was a huge one hiding in plain sight, at once
widespread and culturally near-invisible, was confirmed. It seemed strange that
there weren�t more novels being written about steroids and the gym.

Sign up for Bookmarks: discover new books in our weekly email

Read more
As far as I know, there aren�t. But lots of valuable books approach the topic from
various angles. This list ranges from writings about bodybuilding, to writings
about the role of drugs in competitive sports, to writings about the role that
testosterone � both the naturally occurring steroid hormone and its synthetic
variants � plays in gender identity.

1. Pumping Iron: The Art and Sport of Bodybuilding by Charles Gaines, with
photographs by George Butler (1974)
With this book, Gaines and Butler guided the obscure subculture of bodybuilding
towards the cultural mainstream � a movement accelerated by the book�s adaptation
into a documentary in 1977, and powered by the startling charisma of a young Arnold
Schwarzenegger. Here, Schwarzenegger is �the supreme example of an art form for
which there is hardly an audience�, as well as �very possibly the most perfectly
developed man in the history of the world�. He would soon find his audience, and
Pumping Iron retains its power because of Gaines�s ability to capture the
camaraderie of the gym and the strangeness and nobility of turning the body into an
aesthetic object.

Advertisement

2. The Hero�s Body by William Giraldi (2016)

Gaines documented the golden age of professional bodybuilding, but Giraldi�s memoir
of his own teenaged bodybuilding exploits in early 1990s New Jersey shows how far
things had developed in a few decades. Setting his story of suburban steroid use
and weightlifting in the context of three generations of his male forebears,
Giraldi ponders how he �must have been pantingly desperate for some semblance of
power, for my place among men�.

3. The Men Are Weeping in the Gym, from Physical by Andrew McMillan (2015)
McMillan�s second book of poems, Playtime (2018), has extended his searching and
tender inquiry into the life of the body in poems such as Personal Trainer, Making
Weight and Boxing Booth. But The Men Are Weeping in the Gym� gets its place in my
list for its irresistible picture of the pains and gains of muscle-building. At the
end of the poem, the men it describes are still �swearing [�] that they don�t
hear / the thousands of tiny fracturings / needed to build something stronger�.

4. At the Gym from Source by Mark Doty (2002)

McMillan�s predecessor in casting the male body into poetic form is the US poet
Doty. At the Gym takes something abject, the �salt-stain spot� created on the
weightlifting bench by the residue of so many men laying their heads in the same
place, and finds a figure for the beauty and pathos of the collective efforts to
gain �some power / at least over flesh, / which goads with desire, / and terrifies
with frailty�.

Nostalgia for factory work? � weightlifters in a gym.

FacebookTwitterPinterest
Nostalgia for factory work? � weightlifters in a gym. Photograph: Alamy
5. Against Exercise from Against Everything by Mark Greif (2016)
�Nothing can make you believe we harbour nostalgia for factory work but a modern
gym,� declares this bracing critique of gym-going. For Greif, when we lift weights
or run on treadmills, we volunteer to be the compliant subjects of 21st-century
capitalism. Unlike the participant in team sports, the gym-goer�s practice is one
of individual self-regulation; in counting out reps, distances and calories, we
reduce bodily life to quantifiable economic units. He may well be right. And yet �

6. Against Ordinary Language: The Language of the Body by Kathy Acker (1997)
Acker�s brilliant essay on bodybuilding and the limits of words makes the strongest
argument against Greif�s political analysis. For Acker, to be in the gym is to be
�immersed in a complex and rich world� that takes the bodybuilder to the edge of
what can be articulated. Her essay gives a strange and haunting account of how
�bodybuilders experience bodybuilding as a form of meditation� that brings them
face-to-face with the death and chaos that lie beyond language.

7. Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era by

Paul B Preciado (2013)
First published under the name Beatriz Preciado, this book defines itself as a
�body-essay�, �somato-political fiction� or work of �self-theory�. Among its wide-
ranging analysis of how our �pharmacopornographic� era shapes gender and sexuality,
the real force of the book comes in its ecstatic narrative of Preciado�s
experimental use of black-market testosterone. As the female-born body begins to
transform, �an extraordinary lucidity settles in, gradually, accompanied by an
explosion of the desire to fuck, walk, go out everywhere in the city�.

8. Testosterone Rex: Unmaking the Myths of our Gendered Minds by Cordelia Fine
(2017)
Psychologist Fine�s book represents a necessary counterpart to accounts of the
physical effects of higher testosterone levels. While higher testosterone will
undoubtedly promote increased muscle mass, she shows how complex the scientific
evidence is for hormonal effects on behavioural traits and personality
characteristics, and how the tenuous it is to think of risk-taking and
competitiveness as intrinsically male.

Top 10 books about psychiatry

 Read more
9. Game of Shadows by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams (2006)
The effectiveness of synthetic hormones in modern sporting competition is
undeniable, even if the extent of their use across different sports is heavily
stigmatised and shrouded in secrecy. Game of Shadows is the authoritative story of
how Victor Conte�s Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO for short) supplied
steroids to many of the major figures in US baseball and athletics in the 90s and
early 2000s, and the scandal that followed.

10. The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France by Tyler
Hamilton and Daniel Coyle (2012)
The other necessary book on drugs in sport is this whistleblowing story of the role
they played in professional cycling during the Lance Armstrong era. Hamilton was
part of Armstrong�s US Postal Service team, and his book is a gripping account of
the extraordinarily ruthless, controlling and inventive doping regime Armstrong ran
during his peak years.

Advertisement

� Astroturf by Matthew Sperling is published by riverrun, priced �14.99. It is

available from the Guardian bookshop for �12.89, including free UK p&p.

Since you're here...

� we have a small favour to ask. More people, like you, are reading and supporting
the Guardian�s independent, investigative journalism than ever before. And unlike
many news organisations, we made the choice to keep our reporting open for all,
regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay.

The Guardian will engage with the most critical issues of our time � from the
escalating climate catastrophe to widespread inequality to the influence of big
tech on our lives. At a time when factual information is a necessity, we believe
that each of us, around the world, deserves access to accurate reporting with
integrity at its heart.

Our editorial independence means we set our own agenda and voice our own opinions.
Guardian journalism is free from commercial and political bias and not influenced
by billionaire owners or shareholders. This means we can give a voice to those less
heard, explore where others turn away, and rigorously challenge those in power.

We hope you will consider supporting us today. We need your support to keep
delivering quality journalism that�s open and independent. Every reader
contribution, however big or small, is so valuable. Support The Guardian from as
little as $1 � and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

Support The Guardian

Accepted payment methods: Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Paypal
Topics
Books

Top 10s
Fiction

Health, mind and body books

Science and nature books

Essays

Sexuality
Weightlifting

features
Share on LinkedInShare o