Sex, oysters and chocolate sauce: Pamela Anderson makes her authorial debut

Pamela Anderson writing a novel sounds about as likely as Pat Barker or Fay Weldon taking their clothes off for a living. Then again, there is nothing remotely high-minded about Star, the debut work of fiction from the former Playboy model and Baywatch star which hits the supermarket shelves this week.

Pamela Anderson writing a novel sounds about as likely as Pat Barker or Fay Weldon taking their clothes off for a living. Then again, there is nothing remotely high-minded about Star, the debut work of fiction from the former Playboy model and Baywatch star which hits the supermarket shelves this week.

The cover features a naked spread of the author, with judiciously placed white stars to avoid obscenity suits. And there is another "bonus" spread on the inside of the cover (minus all that pesky writing covering up the air-brushed flesh). "Find out what happens when the A-list meets the D-cup," the blurb promises. Proust this is not.

Star tells the well-worn tale of a small-town girl who hits the big time by wearing skimpy T-shirts, posing nude and cornering mindless bimbo roles on television. The tale is so well worn, in fact, that Ms Anderson says it's a pretty close approximation to her own life. "My main character's name is Star Wood Leigh, which is actually what my porn name would be if I decided to change careers," she explains. "Somebody told me once that you figure out your porn name by taking the name of the first pet you ever owned and combining it with the name of the first street you ever lived on."

Porn is not an idle reference, since the overwhelming theme of the book is sex, sex and more sex. The T-shirt Star is obliged to wear for her oyster-bar waitressing job in Chapter 1 reads: "Shuck me, suck me, eat me raw." As for the first movie star she seduces in Hollywood, she writes: "When she took her turn on him with the chocolate sauce, he could hardly control himself, tearing off the blindfold and dragging her to the bedroom." You get the picture.

Star is not badly written, as trash goes (thanks to the acknowledged efforts of ghost writer Eric Shaw Quinn). Some observations are genuinely witty, such as the film director with so many servants that one is appointed "spokesmaid".

One wonders, though, whether Ms Anderson's fans are really the kind of people who can be bothered to read a book. Time, and the bestseller lists, will surely tell.