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Danny Trejo's 'perfect' memoir goes to John Blake
John Blake Publishing, an imprint of Bonnier Books UK, will publish the first memoir from actor Danny Trejo, written with his best friend of 20 years, actor Donal Logue.
Senior editor James Hodgkinson acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Meredith Miller at United Talent Agency. Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption and Hollywood will be published on 6th July 2021 in hardback, trade paperback, e-book and audio.
Trejo will recount his path from crime to prison, addiction, loss and his unexpected Hollywood fame. The actor will describe how the difficult lessons he learned in childhood both saved his professional life and hindered his personal one, from the time he first used heroin at age 12, to stints in some of America’s most notorious prisons, including San Quentin, Folsom and Soledad. It includes tales of being an inmate with Charles Manson—who showed him how to get high without drugs, using transcendental meditation—finding sobriety in solitary confinement and being offered a new path, thanks to a part as a boxer in 1985 film "Runaway Train".
Hodgkinson said: "I cannot think of a memoir I’d rather read: it has the perfect bingo-card score: gritty crime, an authentic voice, outlaw wisdom from the frontiers, Hollywood folklore and pure pop-culture joie de vivre. Danny Trejo is a real personality in an age of invented ones, and I’m proud to publish his remarkable story."
Trejo commented: "Everything good that has happened to me has happened as a direct result of helping someone else. Everything. This memoir was an opportunity for me to be fearlessly honest for the first time about the terrifying brutality of my experiences in the hardest prisons in the world, the family secrets that tore lives apart, my personal bottom while I was in the hole in Soledad facing a possible death penalty charge, the role God played in turning my life around, my acting career that started at the age of 40 by simply showing up to a set to help another addict in need, and how all of it shaped the person I am."
