The new autobiography by retired Major League Baseball all-star Lenny “Nails” Dykstra is, like its author, as straightforward, entertaining and brutal as they come.

When Dykstra played center field for the Mets and Phillies, he built a lasting reputation for “leaving it all on the field” by dedicating every iota of his energy and ability to winning the game. He takes the same approach as an author, writing a rocket-fueled memoir that details experiences that are downright exhausting to even read about and almost unbelievable for a person to have lived through. HOUSE OF NAILS is the product of dozens of unforgettable game-winning plays, hundreds of steroid injections, thousands of painkillers and amphetamines taken in ballpark clubhouses, and tens of millions of dollars made and lost around the globe. The book is as action-packed as an autobiography can be because that is how Nails’ life has always been, and how it continues to be.

"The book is as action-packed as an autobiography can be because that is how Nails’ life has always been, and how it continues to be."

HOUSE OF NAILS somehow manages to turn what should be a motivational story about an individual who overcomes obstacles to rise to greatness into a cautionary tale about greed, egomania and reckless immoderation. The book describes Dykstra breaking into the Major Leagues despite being almost comically undersized by plainly outworking his competition, then becoming an expert investor without even having a college degree by obsessively studying how the stock market works. But all the while, Nails keeps up a nearly suicidal, nonstop schedule of taking drugs, drinking, chasing women, working and gambling. At times reading like the memoir of a rock star, HOUSE OF NAILS follows Dykstra as he does cocaine with Robert De Niro in the Caribbean, steps through a secret passageway in a half-dead Charlie Sheen’s mansion to pull a crack pipe out of his hand, runs roughshod through Las Vegas with billionaires, and carries out other absurd debaucheries.

While the anecdotes of excess shared in HOUSE OF NAILS are very entertaining, it is the brutally honest voice Dykstra writes with that makes the book outstanding. The words on the page sound like they are coming straight from Nails’ mouth, constantly cuss-filled and dripping in his jockish arrogance --- using a vocabulary generally reserved for Howard Stern interviews and left out of official memoirs. This transparency gives readers a clear look at the psyche of a consummate narcissist, whose relentless self-promotion has carried him to the top of multiple extremely competitive industries while turning him into the classic prototype of a supervillain.

His constant need to prove how outstanding he is leads Nails to dedicating the last quarter of his autobiography to demonstrating that he was innocent of the fraud and grand theft auto charges that landed him in federal prison. He uses the book like a defense attorney’s closing argument to a jury, going as far as to scan entire legal documents and correspondence between lawyers and include them in toto to make his case. It is the work of a man who is still unhinged after all these years, and it is absolutely captivating. Do not read another sports autobiography until you have read HOUSE OF NAILS.