NON-FICTION/BIOG

Looking for a suitable subject for the follow-up to his book The Pirates and the Mouse – a wickedly funny account of a gang of comic book creators who satirised themselves into court with the Disney Corporation, Bob Levin chanced upon the late Hustler magazine cartoonist Dwaine Tinsley. Like Levin’s previous book, Most Outrageous concerns a conflict between the rebellious counterculture and the repressive system, in this case between the man who created the pervert cartoon character Chester the Molester for Larry Flynt’s notorious skin mag and the California authorities who used them as evidence when they put Tinsley on trial for the alleged sexual abuse of his daughter.

Like The Pirates . . . the author’s sympathies are with the victimised individual. Nevertheless, Levin’s account of Tinsley’s trial is exhaustively investigated and scrupulously documented. That attention to the details of what is indeed a shocking subject combined with wise-ass commentary makes Most Outrageous a great read.