7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Modern American Tragedy, June 5, 2006
"The Los Angeles Diaries" continue the tragic story begun in the book "Final Performance". dealing with the author, James Brown's
ability to cope with the issues of a tumultous childhood, which contributed toward the suicides of his older siblings Barry (a rising TV/movie star of the 1970's) and Marilyn.
The first part of the book describes the frustrations of the author (a college professor) at his ill-starred attempts to sell screenplays to Hollywood, and the familial way of handling disappointment with drugs and alcohol. Interspersed throughout
are vignettes (told in flashback) of his childhood, some sentimental, some chilling.
Brown also relates the difficulty of maintaining a sober facade before college professors and students(well acquainted with the
drug scene) who view him cynically.
One bright spot is the hilarious narrative of Jame Brown's attempt to mollify his angry wife with a pot-bellied pig as a peace offering.
The Machiavellian porker is named Daisy, and Brown's problems
burgeon in direct proportion to Daisy's expensive appetite -
and expansive girth.
Man and pig butt heads; in a contest between man and animal,
the animal will win hands down because it has "cuteness" on its side. (The end of the chapter is a riot...)
The second half of "The Los Angeles Diaries" is depressing, describing the downward spiral, and subsequent suicides of
Brown's brother, Barry, and his sister, Marilyn.
By the end of his life, Barry Brown was out of control: impersonating a police officer (a character from a movie) and
drinking compulsively. He shot himself to death at age 27.
Marilyn Brown attempted to wean herself from alcohol and drugs, but past demons prompted her one night to climb onto the railing of an overpass, then fling herself to her death in the dry riverbed below.
The book ends on an optimistic note; while in South Dakota, James Brown resolved to go cold turkey, or die - he made it.
But - his two books ("The Los Angeles Diaries" and "Final Performance") are touching memorials by the survivor to the siblings who didn't make it...
A new American classic.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A privilege to read., April 13, 2004
This review is from: The Los Angeles Diaries: A Memoir (Hardcover)
There's something terribly disturbing about confessional writing. In the hands of a man or woman at the top of their craft, a writer of immense skill and transparency, the experience for the reader can border on the pathological. Honesty without the slightest hint of pretence, particularly from an experienced and intelligent individual, knowing full well that what they tell the world is deeply personal and the honest to goodness truth, is rare. There's always some other agenda. For example, the two most famous confessional pieces in world literature are St. Augustine's Confessions and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Confessions; both author's had an agenda in writing these works, whether for purposes of religious conversion or literary immortality - both achieved their respective ends. Brown's book, however, is different. This is a writer telling a story because this particular story needed to be told. I get the impression that Brown needed to communicate his life in the only form he knew how to as a writer. This is a memoir about writing, addiction, alcoholism, relationships and human responsibility. It is about madness, suicide, compulsion, irony and love. This is a heartbreaking story that leaves the reader with a tiny glimmer of hope. As a true confessional does, it doesn't raise feelings of sympathy or thoughts of self-righteous condescension, but a real empathy, because we've all experienced, in varying degrees, this man's life.
Brown's vivid and deceptively rendered prose reminds me of a style of American writing that's all its own. One reads this simple, clear-eyed style of writing and thinks that it would be easy to imitate. Wrong. It appears simple but is awfully difficult to do. Brown's prose adds to the subject matter, making his family obsessions and chemical escapes much harsher, difficult to swallow, but in the end, inspiring and troubling.
The L.A. Diaries is a rare memoir because it is what it is and doesn't pretend to be anything else. Brown is a fine writer and this work was a privilege to read.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific concept, terrific execution, March 9, 2006
There are a number of things going really right for The Los Angeles Diaries, but none moreso than Brown's conception of his memoir - each chapter a different essay detailing a different discrete portion of his life, so each chapter will jump back and forth a decade or two. It could be disjointed, but instead it's the notion of one consciousness getting out exactly what it needs to for our understanding and letting us crane our necks a bit to fill in the details. This works because James Brown is a writer of such fierce conviction that the notions carry over from one section to another, the reality of his experience connected by spurts and sources of identity, linked by the fierce honesty of his experience. If you're like me, this is hardly the first "addiction memoir" you've picked up (it's practically a genre in itself), but it's especially distinct by a narrator who doesn't "hit bottom" in the typical fashion; Brown is a man always on the fringes of total oblivion managing to salvage himself. It makes for an unforgettable, even inspiring read, but it does leave a couple giant questions - notably, how was the ultimate breakthrough allowing him to remain clean so different from his others? He'd discussed other times he spent days or weeks without drugs or booze, what made this book's ultimate conclusion so distinct? It's abrupt ending won't answer that question, which is tantalizing, but it will leave you with an indelible picture of hope, and a gloriously specific, scrappy image of survival.
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