Pryor Convictions: And Other Life Sentences

At the height of his career, Richard Pryor did something no other comedian had done up to that point: he took listeners deeply into his life, baring himself before audiences as he exposed his foibles and his follies, his tumultuous dealings with women and his misadventures with drugs. "People can't always handle it," he writes in Pryor Convictions. "But I knew that if you tell the truth, it's going to be funny." The pain and truth came from Pryor's earliest years--from his childhood in Peoria, Illinois, where he was raised in bars and whorehouses, and sexually assaulted by an older boy when he was just 6 years old. After a stint in the army, Pryor set out to become an entertainer and began making the slow climb from hole-in-the-wall nightclubs to stardom. Sometimes profane, but always funny, Pryor Convictions is a no-holds-barred autobiography told in Pryor's inimitable comic voice.