OUT OF SYNC: A MEMOIR, Lance Bass
Review by Phil Putnam

To those who are relatively aware, culturally sensitive, and otherwise not idiots, the question was not IF one of the sugar-waxed pop idol bois in *NSYNC was gay, but rather WHEN one of them would tire of pledging eternal teen love to Babysitters Club alumna and krump on out of the closet, sequins blazing. Thus it really wasn’t news when Lance Bass, now aged nicely into his 28 years with the square jaw and shifty glance of an extra in the locker room scenes of Top Gun, announced his love of man-love via the cover of People Magazine in 2006. We gasped, we murmured, we fantasized for a few days, and then we figured we’d just wait for the book to come out and pick up the details there. If only we could have known what a colossal waste of time that would end up being.

OUT OF SYNC, Bass’ autobiographical chronicle of his journey from Mississippi Baptist boy to 1/5 of a global pop icon to openly gay almost-cosmonaut, shares the details of the challenges and triumphs of his life so far. With a setup like that, ya figure it can’t be such a bad book. However, it’s never wise to assume. Bass-o-Matic hands down 192 pages of hypnotically boring personal recollections, 90% of which cover topics that are only of interest to those with a life-sized cardboard cutout of him in their love dungeon, and encases it all in a flat elementary writing style that may have been considered conversational if there was any life to it. While respect must be given to his endurance through the uniquely difficult circumstances of his emotional journey, his telling of that journey reads like a myspace blog on Ambien.

Throughout, Lance displays a skewed view of what the Lanced want to know about the second most useless member of *NSYNC (numero uno useless, of course, is Chris Kirkpatrick). His accounts of school days in Show Choirs and the miniscule details of his training in the Russian Space Program predominate while we never find out if Justin or JC is the better kisser and are left to wonder about the exact dimensions of Reichen’s manhood. These gripes are slightly assuaged by mentions of happy childhood days spent playing deep in the woods with his best boy-bud Darren, and his account of sneaking a cast member from the 2000 Chicago production of Mamma Mia! into his hotel room in for his first-ever trip to Funky Town. Have to give him kudos for picking a member of the gayest show of the time to pop his cherry.

Even with the boyhood romps in the woods and rockin’ the dawn with Mister Mamma Mia!, the most notable hole in the book is the reality of his sexuality. While he peppers the first 160 pages with mentions of the closet and his burgeoning sexual feelings, it is hardly the central theme, as the book’s title and marketing strategies suggest. Only after slogging through the painfully pedantic chapter on his attempt to go all SpacePop with the Russians do readers get to his coming out story, which is again sapped of emotional resonance by a lack of skill and style in the writing. While it is true that there is more to ole Lance-a-lot’s life than being gay, his coming out story was meant to be the primary theme of the book and ended up being relegated to an epilogue clumsily disguised as the last chapter. For readers wanting a solid celeb coming out story, better brush up on your dealing-with-disappointment skills.

Overall, it’s a shoot and a miss for our favorite Bass-tard. OUT OF SYNC will bring joy to the most committed Bass Masters and hardcore *NSYNC fans who worship whatever the guys do with the devotion of a retarded puppy. However, Lancer shouldn’t count on hooking very many new fans with this hasty and limited view into his life.

RECOMMENDATION: Read it if you have to. Re-gift it if you don’t.

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