I’ve just finished reading The Night of the Gun by David Carr. A carefully documented autobiography of Mr. Carr’s journey to hell and back through serious chemical dependency – and I don’t mean endorphins.
Carr is a journalist through and through but takes very seriously the fact that memory is filtered and never exact. Thus, he travels back in time by capturing on film and tape the memories of others – his lovers, friends, family, and children. He compares them against his own recollection and against police records and other documented materials.
For at least a decade he was an addict and somewhat psychotic near the end. He was a addicted to everything in graduating intensity. Never heroin but crack and injecting cocaine. He fights addiction right up until the end of the story but it’s generally a happy ending.
While I enjoyed the book and appreciated the efforts to get the facts straight, I found the story to a bit too detached. That’s not to say that the pain, regret, craziness, violence, and joy don’t come across. It’s just his journalist side couldn’t quite step down long enough to get to the pulsing heart of the story.
That said I read that last two-thirds of the book in basically 24 hours – so I definitely enjoyed it.
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