Customer Reviews

The Los Angeles Diaries: A Memoir

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"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.

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.

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.

What a great book. If you have grown up in a dysfunctional, truly dysfunctional, family then you need to read this book. I'm tempted to write the author and tell him he is awesome (maybe he checks these reviews). These stories/memories bring back a lot of pain of my own but I cannot help but think that he is healing himself by writing this and hopefully passing this along to his children and his niece. This is a book for someone who is ready to recover, not just from alcohol or drug addiction but from dependency.

This harrowing account of James Brown's struggle with alcohol and drugs should be required reading for recovering addicts. In remarkable, startling and beautifully-crafted vignettes, the roots and eventual flourishing of Brown's dependency on booze and chemicals seems as inevitable as the sunrise. But, unlike many of his loved ones, he survived to tell us what it means to 'come to rest at a moment of beginning.' It took a brave man to write this memoir. Are you brave enough to read it?

James Brown, the author of several novels including "Final Performance" and "Lucky Town," has mined his dysfunctional childhood many times for material. And he's had plenty to choose from, including an arsonist mother who bankrupted the family, the alcoholism and drug addiction (and subsequent suicides) of his brother and his sister, and his own battles with alcohol and drugs and failed marriage.

This book is less a chronology of his life than a series of vignettes from his childhood, strung together with scenes from his adult years. So much pain, so much tragedy -- it makes the reader wonder how he was able to redeem himself and recover.

While Brown writes clearly and clear-eyed, it's from a distance. He relates the stories of his life with a detachment that leaves the reader unaffected by even some of the most horrific events. And when he finally comes to the point where he must choose between life and death, it's almost anticlimactic -- there's no sense of the torment that must have gripped him. Perhaps, though, it's this very detachment that has allowed him to survive.

This is the book that James Frey might have written if he'd stuck to the truth. There's not as much high drama and not as many memorable characters, but it rings true. And these days, there's a lot to be said for that.

Might as well read this book, it is a quick read. I found myself disappointed however. It entertained me verily while I was reading the book. I was happy I took the time... Still, now, a while later, nothing of the book sticks with me. This especially disappoints me, being memoirs of a survivor of a dysfunctional and somewhat abusive household... As I come from the same background. I was really hoping part of the book might haunt me in a way. However, with nothing bad to say about this book, I might have to attribute my disappointment to my own expectations moreso than a fault of Mr Brown.

This memoir is as moving and eloquent as any novel of the last twenty years, more so by the fact that the stories are true. I remembering reading many of them originally in the LA Times and other literary journals, but having them back to back compounds the sorrow one feels when reading about a hard life lost and ultimately won again. A must read.

THE LOS ANGELES DIARIES is a realistic and oftentimes uncomfortable read, and yet I enjoyed it immensely for these same reasons. And as a close friend of "the blonde blue-eyed college student" Jim chose to marry, I'd like to clarify that she is indeed a beautiful brown-eyed brunette who loves Jim and his three boys. Second hand gossip should never be dignified
in this forum or any other for that matter.

I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir. James Brown is brutally honest about his life and the fact that he is not sure what he is doing or why he is doing it.

I knew this memoir would be gritty and frankly explore the world of addiction. For me, this was the most important part as it does not glorify addiction, but rather explains how this horrible disease "can just happen" to a person.

While I would have liked the book to be a little longer, the writing was honest and down to earth and the story was fascinating and rang all too true.

Wonderful memoir about life and addiction. A must read.