Top 10 Books about Steroids
Astroturf 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.
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.
