February 15, 2020
A dark yet hope-infused look back at the long-term transformations fueled by an addict's recovery. In his previous memoirs--particularly The Los Angeles Diaries and This River--Brown focused on his bleak, destructive days as a substance abuser. While those experiences remain with him, he has been sober for years. While optimistic, he is still attuned to patterns of addiction surrounding him, and earlier experience with violence and desperation left him sensing the world's fragility. The author explores these themes in terse, punchy pieces that often feel like an essay collection, but Brown's passionate perspective provides a throughline. Much of the material is memorably well crafted, tight, and searing, including the title piece, which captures Brown's guilt at learning of a former drug buddy's son's plunging down the same path: "What the older recovering addict has to offer the younger, active addict is the hope and promise of change through example and nothing more." Brown explores the horrible juxtaposition of his reunion with his grown sons in Las Vegas and the Mandalay Bay mass shooting, and he weighs the gambling-addict shooter's embrace of evil against the backdrop of the city's ordinary temptations. Another striking piece utilizes second person to take readers through the excruciating days (and later triumphant weeks) of withdrawal. Brown's personal history fuels the prose with compassion and near amazement at his own fortunate survival, and he builds a compelling universe of characters. The author details his engagement with 12-step programs and their simple, mysterious commitments, reflects on his experiences reaching out to hardened young prisoners in California prisons, and considers the guilt he still feels for plunging into addiction. "I spend a decade going in and out of the rooms of A.A.," he writes, "along with an occasional stint in rehab, before I'm able to broach that ridiculous idea of God." Tough, meditative, realist prose creates a worthy addition to the crowded field of (post-) addiction memoirs.
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March 16, 2020
Novelist Brown (The Los Angeles Diaries) depicts his addiction and subsequent long-term sobriety in this riveting memoir. Brown and his wife, Freddie, were retired and living in sleepy Lake Arrowhead, Calif., before developing opiate addictions that stemmed from prescription painkillers. Within three years, they transformed from cheerful retirees into desperate addicts who were evicted from their home. Subsequent recollections depict the anger and rage Brown felt about the emotional scars of his upbringing and addiction. To diffuse those feelings, he exercises (“Physical exertion takes me out of myself”); acts as a sponsor to others in recovery; lectures at colleges, prisons, and recovery groups; and reclaims Christianity after years of atheism. In a vivid flashback (and the inspiration for its title), Brown and a fellow heroin user are interrupted while shooting up by the man’s young son—who later becomes a user. Brown, now clean for over a decade, remains determined to help his fellow addicts—though he expresses frustration and disgust with them as they slip and slide. Readers will be drawn in by Brown’s gritty and intense narrative.
February 15, 2020
Brown concludes his trilogy of memoirs on addiction and recovery (The Los Angeles Diaries, 2003; This River, 2011) with this book of essays about others' addictions interspersed with writing on his last 20 years of sobriety. He introduces his neighbors, a heartbreaking older couple that become addicted to prescription drugs after each suffers an injury; the young man he sponsors through AA who goes missing; and a drug-addicted kid whose father Brown formerly did heroin with. Through their stories, Brown shows that addiction doesn't discriminate, while his personal tales show a path through. Many of these essays focus on AA and Brown's sponsor, Nick, who is diagnosed with stage IV cancer. While Brown's admiration and respect for Nick is clear, his dedication to AA is filled with ambivalence about the program: in particular, its outdatedness and reliance on a belief in a higher power. These essays are incredibly powerful and moving while never being sensational or preachy. Readers who've appreciated Mary Karr's and Caroline Knapp's memoirs should give James Brown's writing a try.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)