In December 2017, pornstar August Ames (real name Mercedes Grabowski) found out that she was scheduled to shoot a scene with a male performer who had previously done gay porn and not been subsequently tested. As a result, she refused to perform in the scene and tweeted out this refusal and explanation to her followers on Twitter. This immediately led to a series of intense tweets from people calling her homophobic, demanding her to apologise and, in one case, telling her to swallow a cyanide pill! On 5 December 2017, she was found hanged from a tree in a park in Camarillo, California – she was 23 years old. But did she kill herself over online bullying – or was there more going on in the shadows that led her to take her own life…?
Jon Ronson, whose recent book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, about social media bullying, and his podcast on the porn industry, The Butterfly Effect, is probably the best person to look into the death of a pornstar from online bullying. Except, as he digs beneath the narrative of suicide and social media, he uncovers a great deal of hidden information on Mercedes’ life, her husband Kevin Moore, and certain events that happened in the days leading up to her death.
Like Netflix producing their own exclusive content, The Last Days of August is an Audible-only audiobook and, if this is any indication, Audible have definitely made the right choice in choosing this direction for their business – this is a thoroughly gripping piece of investigative journalism. Ronson, along with his producer Lina Misitzis, carefully unravel the tangled ball of Mercedes’ life, from her troubled childhood in Canada where she was molested by a family member and abandoned by her father, to her rocky relationship with her much older husband Kevin and her battle with depression.
Ronson and Misitzis produce a compelling and informative picture of an industry largely made of damaged, psychologically unstable people being exploited and too emotionally immature and ill-equipped to deal with the trauma and mental illness that drives them to, and is exacerbated by, porn work. Ronson astutely notes that Mercedes’ story reminds him of JB Priestley’s play An Inspector Calls, which this nonfiction story inadvertently turns out to be a modern-day version of, with numerous people contributing in some way to a young woman’s demise.
The story is perfectly paced with one jarring piece of the puzzle skilfully segueing into the next so that I had to keep listening to the next chapter, then the next until it was over – it really is that fascinating. It’s remarkably thoughtful too, explaining why so many young women in porn date older men and why these relationships inevitably fail, as well as touching on the larger picture of the damaging effects of modern day loneliness and its connection to social media. And it’s shocking to find out just how many pornstars die – one performer, Lisa Ann, says that she thinks as many as 75% are ready to step off the edge at any one time!
It’s a very dark and sensitive subject but Ronson and Misitzis handle it expertly and respectfully – The Last Days of August is a remarkable, sad and utterly engrossing story of a modern day tragedy. If you’ve not already got an Audible membership, I’d say it’s worth starting a free trial for this audiobook alone.
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