Straight from the Hart

Bruce Hart is the son of legendary wrestler and promoter Stu Hart and a member of what may be wrestling's true"first family" - a wrestling legacy that spans three generations and includes names such as Bret "Hitman" Hart, Owen Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhardt, and many more.

In his new autobiography, Straight from the Hart (ECW Press. March 2011) Bruce Hart reveals his personal take on the wrestling business and his family's place in it - two subjects that he asserts have never been thoroughly covered by other books. Hart writes in the foreword, "A number of books (have been) written about the Hart family. The bio of my dad by Marsha Erb was nice -although Stu, true to his old-school roots - didn't divulge much about the inner working of the business. Unfortunately, the ones written by my other family members seemed to me to have been penned either to get back at others,or to gratify their egos." Hart adds, "While I won't be pulling any punches (unlike the wrestlers), I won't be taking cheap shots either."

Straight from the Hart begins with Hart's unique childhood. He was the second of what would become a brood of twelve children and raised in a house where men like Andre the Giant and Killer Kowalski might be seated at the breakfast table. Throughout the book Hart recalls theclose-knit ties his family had with the wrestling business first describing what it was like to be trained by his father and fight both with and alongside his brothers Bret and Owen, and later, why his family's business was destroyed by Vince McMahon's WWF, and what really happened behind the scenes of the infamous "Montreal screwjob."

It is on the subject of his brothers that Hart writes the things that only a brother and fellow wrestler could, without vindictiveness but without any sugar coating. His candid recollections also reveal the toll steroids and other drugs have taken on his friends and family, what it was like to write his brother Bret's newspaper columns while the "Hitman" was on the road, the reasons behind the tragic death of Owen, and the effect it had on his family. Packed with new insights Straightfrom the Hart is a remarkably honest look inside wrestling's most famous family and is a must-read for all wrestling fans.