Former Soul Coughing singer Doughty’s memoir about sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll and the spiritual benefits of world travel.
The author half-seriously calls his book “just another drug narrative,” and it's true. There’s nothing about Doughty’s longtime love for pot, coke, heroin and Ecstasy that hasn’t already been superseded by hundreds of other rock-star druggies who eventually replaced compulsive drug use with some form of equally compulsive religious behavior. What makes this story tolerable is not his voracious appetite for drugs and groupie sex but rather the mundane facts of his life as a mid-level rock star. Born the privileged son of a West Point–educated military historian, Doughty grew up knowing only a whitewashed suburban existence. He moved to New York City in the early 1990s to become an East Village creative type, putting together what seemed like just another acoustic act playing the NYC club circuit. But within a year of its inception, Soul Coughing got snapped up in the post-Nirvana major-label signing frenzy. The band consisted of Doughty on guitar and vocals and three jazzbo sidemen whose main function seemed to be busting Doughty’s chops for his lack of musical ability. After readers get to know his insufferable band mates, the author’s addiction becomes more understandable. Yet there’s also something desperately exhibitionist about Doughty’s willingness to recount in brutally frank detail even the most miserable experiences with drugs, groupies, itinerant girlfriends and prostitutes. More interesting than the sex and drugs, however, are the poisonous band dynamics that eventually destroyed Soul Coughing. Though Doughty’s inevitable turn to rehab spiritualism is neither interesting nor inspiring, the stories of his exotic world travel—trips to Cambodia and Ethiopia, for instance—offer a few memorable culture-clash moments. Another mostly enjoyable but unremarkable excess-leads-to-the-palace-of-wisdom drug memoir.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-306-81877-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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