Cannonball - Book 16

The Night of the Gun by David Carr

Another memoir.  I know.  I have been going memoir crazy.  This one is no story-of-a-fun-loving-Mormon-girl-trying-to-make-it-on-her-own-in-New-York-City though.  This one has darkness in its heart.  It has intravenous drug use and multiple arrests and domestic violence and and babies in harms way and all kinds of other nightmarish things.  In the words of Hunter S. Thompson, frequently quoted by my father: "Bad craziness".

This is not the kind of thing I would normally pick up, as I am someone who tries to avoid bad craziness in all it's many forms.  But the guy lived to write about it, so I knew it wouldn't end to badly, and when you are reading two books a week for a whole year sometimes you need to branch out a bit.  Life can't be all pop culture criticism and murder mysteries all the time, unfortunately.  And drug addiction kind of fascinates me. 

The Night of the Gun offers a twist on the traditional addiction memoir formula.  Carr did not just write down his memories of being an cocaine addict and alcoholic, in part because, unsurprisingly. he actually remembers very little.   Instead he uses his skills as a reporter (he writes for the New York Times now) to thoroughly investigate and document that time of his life.   He goes through government documents and police reports, newspaper clippings (mostly of his own writing), and conducts interviews on video with anyone he could find who knew him while he was an addict.  It's an interesting premise, with pretty significant strengths and weaknesses. 

I admire Carr's courage.  It would not have been easy to listen to his old friends recount stories of what an destructive asshole he was.  (And he really was one.  He not only does drugs, but deals, and fights, and beats his girlfriends, and neglects his children.  He was scum, basically.)  And he is incredibly honest about all of it, even the stuff that makes him look really bad.  He writes, for the most part, with humour and without sentiment (except when he is talking about his family, at which point he becomes downright sappy) so that the book, even in its most unpleasant moments, is incredibly readable. 

Despite all of that, I am not sure whether I really liked the book or not.  For a while after I finished it I couldn't really figure out what it was that had rubbed me a little bit the wrong way, until I listened to a discussion about the book on Slate's Audio Book Club*.  They made the point that, while Carr does a great job getting the facts of his story straight, the book is pretty lacking in any actual insight about his experiences.  The discusses his addiction like it is just a fact of life, a given, and does provide much information about how he got there in the first place.  The describes, or rather relates his ex-girlfriends' descriptions, of the domestic abuse he committed, but never delves into why he did it, other than the fact that he was drunk or high at the time.  It is a little irritating, to spend so much time reading about Carr and then to realize how little of himself he has actually revealed. 

The second half drags a little bit.  Eventually Carr gets sober, becomes a single parent to his twin daughters, gets back into journalism and becomes very successful, and gets married.  It is touching certainly, but Carr does not write about it as compellingly as he does the coke-fueled trips on private planes and the drug deals nearly-gone-wrong.  It was nice, during the insanity and misery of the book's first half, to know that second half was there though.  I don't know if I could have stuck it out through all the bad craziness without that reassurance.


Page count: 400
Up next: With Love and Squalor edited by Kip Kotzen and Thomas Beller



*Slate does some kind of the best podcasting around, by the way.  Top notch.  And there are a ton of them.

Cannonball - Book 15

The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance by Elna Baker

I just don't get the whole religion thing.  And by "the whole religion thing" I really just mean "religion, generally speaking".  I don't get it at all.  There are parts of it that make sense to me.  I can understand wanting to believe in some kind of higher power, and even actually believing in one.  And I can understand wanting some kind of explanation of the unexplainable.  I don't understand all the bizarre rules and restrictions though.  I know that not all religions have crazy rules, but a lot of them do.  Mormonisn definitely does.


No drinking, no drugs, no caffeine, no swearing, no sex before marriage (actually, according to Elna Baker, no being aroused before marriage).  Those are the main ones.  Pretty standard, I guess, within the stricter Christian religions. 


TNYRMSHD is about Elna Baker living in New York trying to navigate all the rules.  I really liked it.  I liked Baker's writing and I liked her.  But I also found it incredibly frustrating at times because the rules do not make any sense to me at all, and a lot of the time is seemed like they didn't make sense to Baker either.  She breaks almost all of them (or pushes them to the furthest and most liberal stretches of there interpretations), at one point or another.  Except for the drug one.  She remains kind of tangled up in it all, though.  The reason she sticks with it is because of her family, and because she really does believe in, and has a relationship with, God.  He-with-a-capital-H is a positive force in her life.  I get that, and am even kind of envious of that, but it's unfortunate the the God thing comes a long with so much arbitrary bullshit, you know?

Anyway.  This was a good book.  You would like it, I bet.  And if you read it then we can talk about it for real.  So read it, okay?

Or, at the very least, listen to this TSOYA interview Elna Baker did.  She's funny.  I bet you will end up having kind of a crush on her.


Page count: 272
Up next: The Night of the Gun by David Carr

Cannonball - Book 14

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby is one of those books that I feel like I should have read ages ago, or at the very least, I should have had been more familiar with the specifics of the story.  Like, Hamlet or The Catcher in the Rye or the Bible or something.  They get referenced so much in cultural conversation that, even if you've never read them page for page, you at least have a pretty good gist of what they are about. 

Here are the things I knew going in:
-There is a guy named Gatsby and he is in love with Daisy
-There is some sort of class/wealth element that I was pretty unclear about
-Something about Gatsby being a self-made man

That's about it.  I wasn't actually wrong about any of it, but the picture is pretty vague.  After reading the book, though, I'm actually not surprised at how little I knew about the plot going in to it.  The plot isn't really the point.  This is one of those books that is about theme.

I know, right?  Ugh.  The Powers That Be could probably revoke my right to study English for saying this, but books about theme are pretty much the worst...  Actually, that may be a little unfair.  Let me rephrase: books that focus entirely on theme at the expense of a good plot and interesting characters are pretty much the worst.  I just have no patience for them.  They are boring. 

The Great Gatsby is walking a pretty fine line, because it's plot is borderline ridiculous and almost every single character is a terrible person.  If it were not for the narrator, who may or may not be named Nick, I cannot remember, reading this book would have been a terrible nightmare.  Thankfully, I liked Nick (I am just going to keep calling him that because I am typing this while the internet is down and I already returned the book to the library) a lot.  At the very beginning of the book he describes himself as someone who does not pass judgment on other people, and he sticks to that, which is admirable.  If I had been hanging out with those people I would have been judging the hell out of them all the time, because they are shallow and uncaring and just generally awful.

I'm saying all of this stuff about unlikable characters like it is a flaw in Fitzgerald's writing, but it isn't.  It's kind if the point of the book actually.  Fitzgerald is trying to make a point about class and society and America and I guess he does a pretty good job of making it.  It's just not a point I am particularly interested in.  The book is so fundamentally American, and so concerned with a specific place and time, that I feel like it has nothing to do with me.  I'm glad I read it--I liked Nick, there were certain passages that I thought were great, and it is one of the books that you kind of just have to read at some point--but I can't imagine wanting to revisit it any time soon.



Page count: 153
Up next: The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance by Elna Baker

#128 - What About Them?

I'm all about them

I am no longer behind on my reading, but I am getting very behind on my writing.  Which is annoying.  So by the end of the day today I vow to write posts for books 14-16. 

I'm totally going to do it... as soon as I watch the new episode of Community.

Cannonball - Book 13

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon

I would have been really bummed if I ended up disliking this book.  For one thing, I want to love Michael Chabon as much as everyone says I should love Michael Chabon.  Also, I think that The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is a really great title, and it is always sad when something doesn't live up to the goodness of it's title.  Thankfully, I did really like this book, so it turns out I had nothing to worry about.  It's not a perfect book, but some of it is so great that I am willing to overlook a lot of other flaws.

There is a love triangle and new friendships and a lot of drinking and a lot of description of Pittsburgh in the summertime.  Those things I liked.  The things I didn't like include this awful woman named Phlox who the main character is dating even though she has no redeeming qualities whatsoever** and a secondary story involving the mafia, which felt kind of forced in an otherwise pretty straightforward coming of age story.  The mafia thing ties in with a rocky-relationship-between-father-and-son thing and I kind of lost patience with both.

Chabon's writing is so good, though, that even the parts of the book I didn't like were engrossing.  This book was published when he was twenty-five years old.  No one should be able to write this well when they are twenty-five years old.  It's unfair. 



Page count: 297
Up next: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald



*I suppose it helps that it was ridiculously warm in Ottawa for most of this week and I was feeling pretty summery to begin with.  I was thinking the other day about how I never used to spend much time thinking about the seasons, and now I am kind of obsessed with them.  I feel like I am a different person in the summer than I am in the winter, and different again in spring, and again in the fall.  It all used to run together, but now I find their seperate-ness kind of comforting.
**Phlox!  I know.  The fact that I hate her is not really a flaw in Chabon's writing, but I feel like the fact that I hate her so much is worth noting.  I can't really tell if I am supposed to hate her or not, but I do.

Cannonball - Book 12

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

Wishful Drinking was adapted from Carrie Fisher's one-woman show, so it can't really be called a memoir.  It is more just a collection of crazy things that happened to her, like a regular celebrity memoir, but an only-the-good-parts version.   I think more books by celebrities should be like this.  I guess it probably helps that Fisher is actually a good writer.

Remember a few weeks ago when I told you guys how crazy Nathan Rabin's life is?  Well, his life is nothing compared to Carrie Fisher's.  I can't even begin to explain it to you.  You should probably just read the book.  It's short, the print is big, and I guarantee you that you will learn at least one awesome thing about Bob Dylan and several awesome things about Debbie Reynolds.  That lady is great!  Who knew?


Page count: 163
Up next:  The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon

Cannonball - Book 11

Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Farewell, My Lovely is actually the second of Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels.  I went to the library in search of the first, The Big Sleep*, but it wasn't there, so I started with number two.  I don't think it makes much of a difference, really.  I don't think there is a single character that carries over from the first book to the second, except for Marlowe himself.

I can't help but compare this book to The Maltese Falcon, which I read a couple of months ago.  I really both of them--I am kind of a sucker for the whole hard-boiled detective thing, I guess--but I think Philip Marlowe works better as a main character than I liked Sam Spade*.  He seems like less of a caricature and more of a real person.  The love story, such as it is, in The Maltese Falcon didn't really work for me because Spade seemed so utterly devoid of emotion.  Marlowe is more... vulnerable, I guess is the word I'm looking for, even though it sounds lame and cliched.  He has this great line about slippers that made me fall in love with him a little bit.  I can't quite remember it now, but if you ever read this book you should keep an eye out for it.

I was kind of surprised at how much action the book had.  I guess never really think of the detectives in these kinds of novels every doing anything except sitting in their office smoking and drinking and flirting with their secretary.  Marlowe does a lot of stuff.  He drives around, he gets held hostage and shot up with heroin, he breaks onto a boat.  He gets hit in the face an astonishing number of times.  He doesn't even have a secretary. 

I wouldn't have minded a little less action, frankly.  I really like it in books and movies when people just sit around talking.***


Page count: 304
Up next: Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher





*Mainly because I feel like I should read it before watching The Big Lebowski for the first time.  Everyone loves The Big Lebowski so much, I am kind of excited that I haven't seen it yet. 
**It's funny, both characters were played in movies by Humphrey Bogart, so when I picture them in my mind they look identical.  Identically awesome.
 ***I expressed a similar opinion to Greg the other day with regards to the Star Trek movie.  He looked at me like I was crazy.

Cannonball - Book 10

My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme

Julia Child did not start learning to cook until she was in her mid-thirties.  She became a television start in her fifties.  As a twenty-one year old who has no direction in life, I find these facts incredibly encouraging.  Maybe that's the reason I liked the first half of the book so much more than the second half.  I loved reading about her discovery of what she wanted to be doing with her life, and all the work she did to make it happen.  Julia Child was incredibly ambitious and incredibly driven.  Those are qualities I admire.

The first half of the book also takes place in Paris, and I think I could read about Paris for the rest of my life and never get bored with it.  At one point she talks about the proprieter of a cheese shop so brilliant that if you went in to buy some Camembert she would ask you when you were planning on eating it and then choose the wheel of cheese that would be perfect in exactly that amount of time.  She would choose differently if you were eating it right away, for lunch, or with supper later that night.  Can you imagine?  That's amazing.

Once the Child's moved away from Paris they moved to Marseille, then Germany, the Washington, then Norway, and then to Cambridge, Mass.  I kind of started to lose interest during all of this moving around.  It happened while Julia was working on the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking*, and reading about someone working on a cookbook is not the most fascinating thing in the world, generally speaking.  Writing a cookbook sounds like absolute torture to me, especially the way Julia did it, so thorough.  I admire her, but it seems like it would have been exceptionally tedious. 

Aside from the tedium though, Julia Child pretty much has the greatest life of all time.  She spent all of her days cooking and thinking about food, her husband was super cool (obviously, otherwise Stanley Tucci would not have played him in a movie** and she had one of the greatest kitchens I have ever seen.

When I grow up I want to be Julia Child.  CASE CLOSED.


Page count: 339
Up next:  Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler




*Buckley just got this book.  The French onion soup recipe she made was delicious (although they overflowed a little in the oven which led to a small fire later, when we were trying to make chocolate cake).
**Although the fact that Stanley Tucci just played a rapist/murdering in The Lovely Bones seems to indicate a flaw in my logic here.

Cannonball - Book 9

The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture by Nathan Rabin

I don't really read The Onion.  I'm not sure why, because I really like The Onion, but generally just scanning the headlines is enough so satisfy my itch for satirical news*.  However, I read The A.V. Club pretty religiously.  It is one of my favourite places on the whole internet for pop culture writing (and I say that as someone who spends a lot of time reading about pop culture on the internet).  The Big Rewind is the memoir of Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club's head writer.  Imagine, if you will, what the life story of such a person might have been like... Nathan Rabin's life has been nothing like what you just pictured.  Nathan Rabin's life has been crazy. 

He was kidnapped by his mother.

He attempted suicide by taking a bottle of caffeine pills.

He spends most of his teenage years in a group home for emotionally disturbed boys. 

The group home chapters are my favourite part of the book.  Rabin's descriptions of his time there, and especially of the other boys in the home, are really funny and touching and strange:  "Now, I don't want to suggest that the people I grew up with were feral subliterates.  But the people I grew up with were feral subliterates".  

The rest of the book, while still enjoyable, is  less compelling.  I can't really figure out why though.  It is hard to top the antics of emotionally disturbed boys, I guess.  It's not as if Rabin goes to college and all of a sudden stops getting caught up in bizarre situations.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that, after a while, all the weirdness that goes on can't be blamed on unfortunate circumstances anymore.  Most of the time if you are an adult and your life is crazy it is because you are making your life crazy.  No one forced you into getting sad, $200 dollar handjobs, or into taking mushrooms before going the Ann Frank Museum, Rabin.  You did that yourself.

Although, he ended up with pretty much the coolest job on the planet so maybe his judgment is not as bad as he makes it out to be.

I am getting a little bit behind on my reading!  I am about 2/3 of the way through book ten right now.  I would love to just sit down and power through it, but school has been getting in the way this week, and will continue to do so for the next couple of days.  After this midterm is over and this paper is finished I am going to have to read like a madwoman to catch up.


Page count: 368
Up next: My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme



*This is the best one I've seen lately.