As the twentieth century drew to a close, pornography was a $10 billion-a-year business in America. About $1 billion of that cash flow was generated by magazine sales. One of the most provocative and controversial of the so-called "men's magazines" was Larry Flynt's Hustler. The raunchy periodical, founded on its publisher's oft-stated desire to cater to the "erotic imaginations of real people," helped redefine the "mainstream" of porn and wielded an influence far beyond the cloistered realm of XXX literature.

In its essence, the Hustler story is inseparable from that of its founder, Larry Flynt. A child bootlegger from the mountains of Kentucky, Flynt escaped the torpor of Appalachia at age 15 by joining the United States Army. Upon leaving the service, and surviving a failed first marriage, he established a profitable chain of go-go bars. In 1972, he moved into publishing, starting up an eponymous newsletter for his Hustler club. The...