Blue Days, Black Nights: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Ron Nyswaner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2004

"A brilliant and inspirational vision of love, death and spiritual redemption in 20th Century America. Ron Nyswaner's account of his struggle with real life demons great and small is gripping, harrowing and sometimes shockingly intimate. It is heartbreaking and yes-it is also very, very funny indeed. It delivers an emotional intensity that fiction, by comparison, can only hope to achieve."-Jonathan Demme

"Ron Nyswaner's courageous and exquisitely written memoir speaks to us all on the mysteries of whom we love and why. The book reminds me most of Somerset Maugham's classic, Of Human Bondage-for true passion has an involuntary nature, so well depicted here. Ron Nyswaner is a poet of the secret self, and his first book marks a stellar debut."-Laura Shaine Cunningham, author of Sleeping Arrangements, Beautiful Bodies, A Place In the Country, and Dreams of Rescue

A wrong turn down a one-way street in the shadow of the Sunset Strip's Chateau Marmont leads Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia, Soldier's Girl) on a journey that will nearly drown him in the intoxicating, impulsive, maddening, tragic, and transformative nature of love. Despite the success of his latest film, Ron has been fighting depression and contemplating self-destruction. "I don't want a mediocre, empty life," he tells his psychiatrist-acupuncturist-herbalist after halfheartedly attempting to hang himself with a belt. Then, on a trip from his home in upstate New York to Los Angeles, Ron meets and falls for world-weary Johann, a Latin-quoting, leather-clad hustler with a vague, European accent. In the next year Johann will teach him many things: how to make a crack pipe out of a soda can, how to come down from a crystal meth binge, how to walk down a city street as if he owns it, how to beg for "more" in Hungarian, and how to lose oneself utterly in reckless passion. If he can survive it, loving Johann might be Ron's salvation.

Ron Nyswaner wrote the screenplays for Mrs. Soffel, Swing Shift, Philadelphia, (for which he received an Academy Award nomination,) and Soldier's Girl. He lives in Woodstock, N.Y.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Having lived with psychological scars since childhood, screenwriter Nyswaner (Philadelphia; Soldier's Girl) recounts his struggles in this searing memoir. After writing the Oscar-nominated Philadelphia, he was still tortured by emotional problems and turned to alcohol and drugs. As Nyswaner shuttles between Hollywood script meetings and caring for his ailing parents, his only source of pleasure is Johann, a cold-hearted male hustler who dominates him sexually and emotionally. Eventually, Nyswaner's obsession with Johann merges with his insatiable desire for drugged oblivion, leading him into a dangerous addiction. With unsparing honesty, Nyswaner conjures the sensation of a crystal meth high and the ensuing paranoia. His explicit accounts of sex with Johann aren't titillating, but rather tinged with the yearning for submission that Nyswaner so desperately craves. Finally hitting rock bottom after the death of a loved one and contemplating suicide, Nyswaner ends his drug dependency, although he doesn't tell readers how he did it. Did the "meetings" Nyswaner's therapist convinced him to attend finally work? Although the book is a compelling journey through the world of male prostitution and drug abuse, Nyswaner's recovery remains a mystery.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Move over, Holly Golightly! Capote's memorable prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold has an unlikely heir apparent. Johann, wrapped in storm-trooper drag and a seemingly impermeable shell of mastery, contempt, and control, softened with a soupcon of caring, is, as screenwriter Nyswaner (best known for Philadelphia) presents him, oddly endearing. For Johann's professional strictures against lip-kissing, caressing--really, any sort of intimacy-- were perverse turn-ons for the smitten, eternally curious Nyswaner. In this thoroughly engaging, never self-pitying memoir of his passionate love for the man he only thought he knew, Nyswaner recounts his dissolute indulgence in drugs, drink, and hustlers, revealing a self-destructive lifestyle of which hunky Johann is only a part. Some may turn away from the book's graphic, but always compelling, scenes of drug use, self-degradation, and mutilation, but others may take comfort in the fact that someone so deeply sunk in a cycle of despair and destruction bounced back to tell his tale. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Advocate Books; First Edition edition (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555838898
• ISBN-13: 978-1555838898
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,009,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent First Person Narrative, October 25, 2004

By 

turtlex "turtlex" (PA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Blue Days, Black Nights: A Memoir (Hardcover)

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"Blue Days, Black Nights: A Memoir" is Ron Nyswaner first published book. And an excellent one, at that.

His name may sound familiar as he is the Academy Award nominated screenwriter of the film "Philadelphia". This is not, however, a star filled, tell-all Hollywood tale. Quite to the contrary. This is a human story, told with brutal honesty.

Following the critical and commercial success of "Philadelphia", Mr. Nyswaner went through a personal time of turmoil and pain.

This excellent autobiography tells that story; an inner story of pain and guilt, as much as an autobiography about living in a time when not all the answers are as cut and dry as we might like. Where children become parents to their parents, where love has a price tag, where feeling good can be purchased, but being happy and content cannot.

Written with clear language and daring insight, this book was a real page-turner for me.

The story begins with an ending, and it's not giving away anything to say that this is a brilliant way to begin this journey with Mr. Nyswaner.

And it is a journey, of the heart and soul, into addiction, of both the mind and body. The fact that Mr. Nyswaner came out on the other side of such a traumatic time in his life and has been able to write about it, speaks volumes about human spirit, about coping and loving.

This autobiography covers so many topics, but does not feel preachy or forced.

It is a genuine look into a world most of us will never visit.

It's an excellent read, and highly recommended.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hits Very Close To Home, November 15, 2004

By 

ennui "Patrick" (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Days, Black Nights: A Memoir (Hardcover)

As a middle-aged gay man myself in the throes of a self-destructive meth and coke habit, this book hit very close to home. Actually I read it during a long party of partying with meth (since I wasn't going to sleep, I had to do something). Books like this always catch my eye, ever since Elizabeth Wurtzel's "Prozac Nation"...maybe because I struggle with addiction myself, I can certainly relate to everything in this book, except for maybe the hiring the hustler part. I've had more than my share of lost weeks and weekends with beautiful strangers, and have gone through many of the same situations, which are both horrifying and enlightening. I don't view books like this entirely as entertainment...I think there is a message as well. For me, that message is unfortunately too close to home, though I enjoyed the read very much. I highly recommend this book, and can only hope this is also made into a movie.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One man's searching and fearless moral inventory of himself, March 24, 2005

By 

Charles S. Houser (Binghamton, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blue Days, Black Nights: A Memoir (Hardcover)

These memoirs by a talented screenwriter sometimes read like an implausible and unsellable film script. Nyswaner is so honest about his personal tragedies, disappointments, and shortcomings, it is hard to believe this self-awareness was so hard-won. He has the humble wisdom of someone who has managed to find grace in some of life's most graceless circumstances. His success as a film writer is back-story. How he as a small-town boy from a working class western Pennsylvania family achieved this success is not really explained. This is really the story of his descent into a personal hell of alcoholism, drug addiction, depression, self-loathing, and suicidal despair...and of his eventual recovery. If his recovery is not exactly phoenix-like, it will strike readers who have been through similar experiences as authentic. Nyswaner is, after all, an accomplished writer. He is no sloganeer or New Age spiritual salesman. His story ends not with blissful optimism, but on a note of cautious but grounded hope.

At the heart of his life's story is his journey toward love. And key to what he learns about this powerful human experience is his relationship with a prostitute he knew as Johann. BLUE DAYS, BLACK NIGHTS begins with Nyswaner's account of Johann's funeral, so it is not "spoiling the plot" to say Johann dies tragically and prematurely and that his death is a pivotal moment in Nyswaner's journey. Nyswaner does not glamorize or vilify Johann's life as a prostitute, nor does he describe it in patronizing terms. It may be hard for some readers to believe that what Nyswaner felt for Johann could accurately be described as love. And it's clear that Nyswaner himself shares in such incredulousness. The biggest question Nyswaner seems to ask (and I believe successfully answers) is, Can love exist in relationships that are not completely honest? Nyswaner seems to be saying that imperfect love perfectly accessed opens a person's heart to deeper and more authentic levels of love. It is through facing the death and loss of Johann that Nyswaner is able to find the love he needs to care for his aging and dying parents and rebuild his damaged life.

All this is to say, BLUE DAYS, BLACK NIGHTS has much to teach not just people who've been damaged by drugs and sex addiction, but also anyone who has ever failed to be completely honest with himself. It's a profoundly moving story, one I'm sure I'll read again and continue to learn from.