Some people aspire to be like him, while others would describe him as a chauvinistic pig. Either way, Tucker Max has proven successful through his writings about sleeping with various types of women, getting drunk and getting in trouble.
He recounts these stories in his books, “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” — No. 1 New York Times bestseller and film inspiration — “Assholes Finish First,” and, most recently, “Hilarity Ensues” and “Sloppy Seconds,” which hit stores today. His blog, TuckerMax.com, which he started in 2002, has also gained him Internet exposure.
Despite fame from his partying lifestyle, the 37-year-old author is ready to settle down and retire from his “fratire” style of writing, as he stated in the epilogue of “Hilarity Ensues.” In the future, Max plans to release an advice book and live life as he wants, even though he says the partying lifestyle isn’t who he is anymore.
“What I’m going to do next is do whatever I want,” Max said in a phone interview. “That’s the cool thing about selling millions of books is that I don’t have to do anything. … It’s not like because I’m not going to be the crazy, out-of-control partier that I was at 25 that I’m going to sit around in the dark and do nothing. At the same time, things change as you grow up and mature and develop and so certain things that I wasn’t really interested in the past are available in the future.”
Max’s lavish stories about getting laid and wasted have gained notoriety in the college scene, even though he points out that none of his stories are college-based.
“My college stories are like everyone else’s college stories,” Max said. “‘I went to this party, got super drunk and came home with this girl…’ There’s nothing funny or unique about that.”
Instead, Max said that the books are actually aimed more toward middle-aged people.
“It’s a different world when you’re an adult,” Max said. “Do 30-year-olds read my stuff? If you had fun at all and you were remotely cool, at 30 you’d be like, ‘That totally reminds me of my friends or I did that.’ … The only people who can’t imagine these things happening are complete losers or so young that they haven’t experienced that kind of stuff.”
Likewise, Max encourages students to get the most out of college, and not necessarily only in an academic sense.
Max said, “I think the point of college is to try new things. If you get to college having no stories like mine, that’s one thing. If you leave college having no stories like mine, you probably did something wrong in college. You should have fun and have nights where you get so drunk that you throw up. You should have a couple random hookups at least. A lot of the stuff I did was a bit extreme, but that style of living and partying is one of the major points of college.”
While Max has gained popularity by those who enjoy reading about his life, there are also those who disagree with his actions or just simply call him a liar.
One particular radio show, “The Opie & Anthony Show,” in 2006, claimed Max lied about his story entitled “Tucker Tries Buttsex; Hilarity Does Not Ensue.” In the story, Max recounted convincing a girl to try anal sex while his friend secretly videotaped it. Needless to say, in typical Max-fashion, things went very wrong and the scene ended up covered in vomit and feces. However, Max could not produce the videotape.
“There’s no video tape of any number of things that have happened in history,” Max told the Daily 49er. “Do we doubt them? … If I had the tape, I would show the tape. But I don’t, and it sucks. There’s a very simple way to say this. Every single thing I write about that’s verifiable is verified. It’s not like I didn’t go to Duke or didn’t have a girl blow me on an X-ray machine. That actually happened.”
Regarding those who may not like him, Max said, “It took me a long time to understand that someone could read my stories and be jealous. They see me as kind of this immature, ridiculous youth but when I started writing, that’s very much who I was as a person. I thought, ‘Why would anyone be jealous? Everyone does the same things I do, I just write them down.’ … Over time I realized that a lot of the dudes hate my stuff, but there’s a difference between something not interesting you and you hating something. … Whenever someone has a serious, strong negative emotion that has nothing to do with them, then it has to do with that person.”
Max is also often criticized as a woman hater, but he identifies himself as the opposite.
“People who haven’t read my books think I’m putting down girls, but I’m not,” Max said. “There’s definitely parts of my stories where I have negative interactions with specific individual women but there are also ones where I have negative interactions with specific men. It’s not about women or men in general; it’s about the people I’m talking about in those stories.”
“Hilarity Ensues” and “Sloppy Seconds” are now being sold in stores. As a token of gratitude to his fans, Max announced today that “Sloppy Seconds” will be available as a free digital download on his website, the Kindle, iBooks and other eReaders.
“‘Sloppy Seconds’ actually isn’t a normal book,” Max said. “It’s 200 pages of my leftover stories that I didn’t think were good enough for my first two books. Anyone can go download it and get it for free. There are no catches or strings. It’s sort of a thank you to my fans for buying my first three books, instead of selling some of my b-material, which would be kind of a dick move.”