Andre Agassi's admission that he dabbled in crystal meth 12 years ago is hardly the only shocking confession in his memoir, Open, which hits bookshelves Monday.

Turns out that fluffy mullet Agassi wore in his denim shorts era wasn't really his hair. It was a wig to hide his prematurely receding hairline. He wore a hairpiece at the 1990 French Open, at age 20, and feared it would fall off.

Agassi bares his soul in this book, from his pot-smoking days at the Bollettieri Academy to his friendship with Barbra Streisand (``a tortured perfectionist who hated doing something at which she excelled,'' like him), his troubled marriage with Brooke Shields, and his courtship of Steffi Graf on Fisher Island. As for the drug admission, Agassi said during a phone interview last week that he knew some people would be ``shocked and disappointed,'' but he included it as a cautionary tale to others who ``may find themselves facing the same traps I stepped into.''

Early publicity focused on drugs, but the book (written with the help of Pulitzer Prize winner JR Moehringer) is, in its entirety, a powerful and tender tale of a lonely insecure kid, his relationship with a hard-to-please father, his love-hate relationship with tennis, and his transformation from a rebellious brat into a dedicated family man and one of sport's most generous philanthropists.

``I really never knew myself,'' Agassi said. ``With this book, I made sense of my life to myself. It was cathartic to relive it. I always felt overmatched by books, felt insecure about my lack of formal education. I want my kids to understand the beauty of written words. And I want them to know you shouldn't be scared of the truth.''

Agassi will be at Books-A-Million in Sawgrass Mills Mall from 4-6 p.m. Sunday and will do a ticketed talk/signing for Books & Books at Temple Judea in Coral Gables on Monday at 6:30 p.m.

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