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37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very Well Written, Honest Account, January 21, 2006
In this book, Deborah Curtis gives an honest account of the story of her life as she became involved with Ian Curtis, as teenage friend, wife, and mother of his child. She does an excellent job of expressing her thoughts and feelings as she describes how their life was together, from when they first met, the time she was first introduced to punk music by Ian, their marriage at a very young age, the evolution of Joy Division and Ian's "stardom," the struggles she faced with balancing the care of their child while trying to make ends meet while her husband was out and about with the band and/or his mistress, as well as coping with the violent mood swings and epileptic fits that Ian underwent. In addition, the reader gains an insightful and behind-the-scenes look at Joy Division and the workings of the music world. The lifestyles of musicians may look all glamorous on the outside, but the road getting there is far from being anything glamorous, as well as pitted with weasels and parasites preying to latch onto the next rising star.
I think that Deborah Curtis' story clearly illustrates that if one is not wanting help, no matter how many people there are willing and able to help, there is no helping to be had by that person. Ian Curtis clearly did not want help. Deborah Curtis honestly portrays the helplessness she felt as well as, understandably, the exhaustion one cannot help feeling when dealing with a difficult person. As Deborah Curtis points out in her book, despite all the turns of circumstances and dire outcomes that could make someone want to commit suicide, dying at a young age is something Ian had always wanted to achieve. Ian Curtis chose his lifestyle accordingly for the inevitable to occur, to reach his desire to become a legendary "James Dean" figure. Deborah claims that she felt like she was being played upon as a character in her husband's "drama' of a life. There is only so much relating one can do with such a controlling person, only so much one can learn about him, thus creating the enigma that he still is today and still has people wondering.
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Heart of Darkness, September 17, 2005
Ian Curtis, a mesmeric frontman and renowned lyricist, is every bit deserved of his mythical-iconic status. So, do you want to hear 'the story' recounted from the perspective of his cheated wife? Well, I did. And admittedly, it WAS an intriguing read, revealing a man full of faults but ultimately a dedicated, hard-working person who painstakingly forged a promising musical career. Sadly, however, it was his escalating personal problems that ironically became his group's 'selling point'.
Before the suicide that boosted record sales and confirmed Curtis' status among legends, the music press were already drawing attention to his burgeoning problem with epilepsy. Spurred on by his frantic, spasmodic dancing, live audiences must have seemed like eager spectators in a freak-show, baying for the crescendo of an on-stage fit. While this focal-point may have generated the hype the band needed in a highly-competitive industry, to Ian - whose depression was compounding his illness - the press reviews struck some disturbing parallels close to the bone ("In his opinion they were like psychiatric reports, even using the appropriate terminology and references"). Deborah reveals a man deeply embarrassed of his illness, yet obviously aware of its play in his desperate will for success. She portrays a man of contradictions, a Jekyll-and-Hyde figure: 'one-of-the-lads' to his bandmates and friends, while concealing a darker personality that sought refuge in thoughtful literature (Hesse, Dostoyevsky, Conrad, Ballard), held an interest in Nazism, and was fascinated by "extreme concepts and philosophies". Not to mention a death wish.
The book briefly dips into Ian's trouble-free childhood and drug-experimenting adolescence, but concentrates mainly on the period of their courtship/marraige that coincided with the rise of Joy Division and hit the rocks when Ian began his affair with the Belgian woman Annik Honore. Deborah interestingly sheds light on Ian's strongly-held (and very serious) romantic notions of rock'n'roll suicide and death, and expresses her shocking opinion that "he engineered his own hell and planned his own downfall". He is described as a habitual depressive whose problem took a marked dive for the worse as his epileptic condition became debilitating, exacerbated by the barbiturates he was issued. Little was known about effective ways to treat epilepsy. Doctors showed Ian little sympathy or care. Remember, this was back in the 'pull-yourself-together' age of 1970's Britain which, particularly in this book, appears like the Dark Ages. Mental illness and 'mysterious' conditions such as epilepsy were airbrushed from public-consciousness, and dubiously treated.
Nowadays, in hindsight, Curtis' lyrics may read as obvious cries-for-help or predictions of tragedy - even suicide notes -but at the time, nobody close to Ian was paying enough attention to realize the danger in their increasingly extreme content. Deborah was shocked upon hearing the darkly-confessional lyrics of the 'Closer' LP (released just after his death). She says that had she heard it beforehand she "could have gained an insight into what was happening in his mind". And got some help. Couple this with the fact they had a one-year-old daughter, and it simply adds to the tragedy. However, she does suggest Ian's suicide as something probably inevitable.
Deborah's dicovery of Ian's body in the kitchen of their Macclesfield terraced house - he'd polished off a bottle of whisky and hung himself, Iggy Pop's 'The Idiot' still spinning on the turntable - is sequenced in chilling dreamlike flashback. And, an example of the shameful heartlessness of the music industry is given as bassist Peter Hook (gererally good guy throughout) is shown as offering Deborah "one of the few expressions of sympathy shown to me by Ian's music business friends". Ian died at just 23 years old.
The book is an emotional trawl through a dark, difficult past that raises many unanswered questions and much speculation. Being the only biography of Ian's life by somebody close to him, it cannot help but present a one-sided view that - for Ian's sake - could do with some counterbalance from elsewhere. While Deborah DOES glance over the kinder aspects of Ian's nature (he loved animals / took an "exremely personal interest" in his job helping the disabled etc.) she seems a little too-eager to emphasize his negative traits, frequently listing his selfish, cruel and sometimes bizarre behaviour towards her. In places, her writing makes you wonder what she actually saw in him in the first place. There are also some petty moments, such as when she complains about Ian's "racism" while forgetting that she earlier mentioned his love for reggae and going to clubs "where white people didn't normally go".
Ultimately, the book is a riveting - if one-sided - read. However, with Deborah's recent solo-insistence upon pushing ahead for 'the movie' (always a bad idea), it quite naturally throws suspicion upon what the project was actually accomplished for. Nevertheless, to any Joy Division fan, or indeed anybody interested in Ian Curtis' writing, the inclusion of the full lyrics alone makes this book not only well-worth the cover price but an essential possession.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A personal view which we as fans never knew, August 23, 1998
By A Customer
I read Deborah Curtis' book a couple of months ago and have been surprised that I have not felt the same about the memory of Ian Curtis that I had since I heard he had died so many years ago. I saw Joy Division in concert when I was 15 years old in London and a couple of times on TV, I was hooked. I grew up wondering what kind of life this man had, what he was experiencing, what made him so bizarre on stage (see the video "Here are the Young Men"). I have grown up and for the most part still wondered about these unanswered questions. I hoped that reading Deborah's book would help me understand a bit more and I was not disappointed. The book was not about the music, but about the man, his dreams and his failures. This is what we as fans did not see, we only saw this pail white man with thrashing arms singing about stuff that we did not necessarily understand, but knew he saw singing for us. Thank you Deborah for a wonderful insight into your life with Ian Curtis. Hopefully he can now rest in peace.
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