The Los Angeles Diaries : A Memoir

Rating:
Summary: One of the best drug/booze confessions
Review:
Jimmy: I read the book in one long gulp. I thought the writing was wonderful. But you can understand that the book poses some questions. For instance, how can an irresponsible alchoholic, and drug addict get through college like you did? How does the same person, who can't be trusted to tell the truth for two minutes, get to be a professor? How come you were never busted for drug use and purchase, from the age of nine to well into your thirties?
Jimmy, I'm a musician, and you know we're very suspicios people, especially about drug lore. In another booze memoir, "Dry", Augusten Burroughs has a disclaimer at the beginning of his AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR, "SOME EVENTS AND PEOPLE HAVE BEEN FICTIONALIZED." So Jimmy you have my deep respect for you as a writer.....now I'd like to see the documentation for the book.



Rating:
Summary: A dark voice that utters absolute truth
Review: I don't know where James Brown found the courage to recount the tragic tale of his life, but I cannot emphasize enough how meaningful it has been for me to read it. Where many will see this memoir as a classic depiction of the descent into substance abuse, what resonated for me was honesty in regard to the issue of suicide. I believe it takes a potential suicide to understand a potential suicide; most family members respond in the same way that 'Jimmy' did to his older brother: "You don't really mean that stuff." Sometimes we do. Beyond his courageous though brutal honesty, Brown has the rare ability as a writer to bring his readers into a scene so deeply that we forget we are reading the words on the page and begin to believe we are living these scenes with him. His power as a writer comes from his concise, unembellished rendering of every scene. In 200 pages we have his life--and his soul. I suspect this book will see the same success as Angela's Ashes--because everyone will tell everyone to read it. Bravo.

Rating:
Summary: I like the honesty
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: James Brown's memoir, The Los Angeles Diaries, cuts to the quick with its terse but layered descriptions of alcoholism, mental illness, sibling suicide, and, unexpectedly: hope. Without glorifying his addictions or misbehavior--especially towards his wife and three children--Brown's confessional creates a powerful intimacy where none should be.

When the book opens during the middle of Brown's usual commute to a screenwriting job in Hollywood, he seems a likeable professional, with morbidly intelligent commentary on his childhood and southern California. Then like a fast-forward edit in a music video, we witness one of Brown's typical three-day binges. He begins with one drink. And promises himself only one. Next comes crank, followed by crime... Without eliciting sympathy, Brown creates a sense of intimacy by simply stating his emotions: "My wife's name is Heidi, and I know I should call her, that I owe her that much, but I don't want to hear it. Her cursing. Her screaming. I know I've done wrong. I know there's no excuse for getting drunk when you're supposed to be home with your family and I wish knowing this would stop me from doing it. I wish that's all it took. That I could will it to happen. But it doesn't work that way, it never has, and in my state of mind, at this particular moment, I can't imagine living without it. The alcohol. The dope. I've been drinking and using since I was nine years old and sometimes I think it's the only thing that gives me any real pleasure."

The following eleven autobiographical sketches of The Los Angeles Diaries operate in a similar fashion. Brown's brutally honest narration, modestly describes disturbing situations throughout his life. Watching an author publicly display the pains and problems of his past, in a dignified, without-whining-way shows how people can learn from their mistakes and move forward into a brighter present.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: Not to take anything away from JAMES BROWN and the very powerful writing he does with "THE LOS ANGELES DIARIES" but he covers the same territory as "MY FRACTURED LIFE" and I'm not sure it can be done better than that. Mentally ill mother, moderately successful suicidal Hollywood actor, absentee father, they're all the same subject matter. Like I said, Brown does write a powerful book. Plus he does tell his own story, he's not imitating Travolta. This is Brown's own story, be sure. I just can't say that he does it as well as Travolta did. Perhaps I'm biased because I read "MY FRACTURED LIFE" first and I'd feel different if I read them in the opposite order (only one chance for a first impression). I definitely recommend reading "THE LOS ANGELES DIARIES" and give it 4 and 1/2 Stars. "MY FRACTURED LIFE" I give 5 stars. They're both excellent. Which you like better will come down to preference. Maybe if you buy them together you'll flip flop the ratings.

Rating:
Summary: A privilege to read.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Moving and eloquent
Review: 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?

Rating:
Summary: Wow....Brought back tough memories of my own
Review: 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.