"The more I show up in films, the more people are curious about the story of my life. I hope people see through my story that it's possible to make a decision to live a better life, and to change. Once that decision is made, it's possible to stay true to it for the rest of your life." Danny Trejo is known as the "most-killed actor in cinematic history" and he owns several restaurants and cafes, but, as he tells it, his life could have gone down a very different path, with a violent end in prison.
In this candid autobiography, Trejo does not shy away from the less Hollywood parts of his past or his present. He presents a life of bad choices and how it can be turned around, and also shows how even becoming a Hollywood star will not automatically fix everything else that might be going wrong in someone's family life. Even as he worked as an addiction counselor and spoke about his recovery, he was struggling with his children's journeys to sobriety.
Trejo generously shows readers how they can remake the stories they tell themselves about how to be. He sees acting, its process of storytelling, as another way to teach people life lessons, and that they can overcome whatever they are going through. Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood is a brutally candid account of intergenerational struggles with violence, incarceration, addiction and toxic masculinity and, most importantly, how these cycles might be broken. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer