The Night of the Gun

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.

Too much happiness

In addition to watching movies and melting my brain with cute stuff on the intewebs, I also read!  I do read at a slow pace though.  This partially explains why there aren't as many book reviews as there are movie reviews.

Last week I finished reading Alice Munro's latest book of short stories: "Too Much Happiness" (I'll refer to the book as "TMH" from here on).  If you've ever read Munro, you'll know that the title is not really indicative of the actual contents of the book.  I've only read one other Munro book ("Runaway"), so I am by no means an expert.  However, compared to that other book, TMH is a little more...dramatic in the events that unfold.  There's more death in it anyway.  Some reviewers have linked the presence of death to Munro's growing feeling of mortality (she's 75).

Although I liked "Runaway" more, TMH is a good read.  Munro uniquely captures the lives of women of all ages and circumstances.  Even in the space of a short story you get a feel of being in the skin of the main character.  A passage from an LA Times review reflects my thoughts more eloquently than I can do myself:

Munro's stories...remind us that the non-essential things -- the things that didn't have to happen, that could have been avoided if people were a bit more rational, or a bit more careful, or if the world just made a bit more sense -- so often determine the shape of a life. In doing so, they remind us that comfort and security are by their very nature essentially fragile and ephemeral, if not largely illusory.

If the title isn't warning enough, I have to be perfectly clear that these stories are not happy, heartwarming stories.  They make you think and they make you wonder and feel, which, in my opinion may sometimes better than happy and heartwarming.

There's a good Slate Double X podcast book club on this book.

That is all on the book.  I will leave you now with a bizarre image.  What you see below is an actual cake!  The photo is complements of the awesome Cake Wrecks website.