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Rather a pretentious title for something that's more of a sketch than a portrait.
Book #9: Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man
Author: Bill Clegg
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
I picked this up on a whim, since I've been sitting in the biography section, and I recognized the name. This is the literary agent guy who had a big crash from drug addiction that I heard about! And the book was pretty slim, and the prose looked interesting at first glance, so why not, I thought?
I suppose this book was worth about a whim, but it didn't really get me anywhere. Clegg narrates the story of his addiction and ultimate final binge by alternating chapters between said binge and tales of his growing up, the psychological problems he had that manifested as physical symptoms (here, difficulty with urination), the rise of his attraction to men, etc. This seems like a fine enough structure, but the writing is facile; it really does feel too light for the subject matter much of the time. For the content of the book, which is heavy - an accomplished professional throws it all away for crack! - it doesn't feel like there's much depth to it. It's all surface-y, and what writerly techniques he trots out don't really strike home.
I guess you don't really get that much of a sense of how much he has to lose, his life as a success, because he doesn't really ever accept that he was successful as such himself; he just accepts he has the outward markers of success. And when he does bad things, and people offer to help, you don't really get a sense of why; the other people in the story of Clegg's life as presented are pretty one-dimensional. The binge itself and the paranoia it brings on are written up well, but the backstory side and people besides Clegg don't really come together for me. On the whole, I feel like this was less than the sum of its parts; although he made a lot for this memoir, Clegg might do well to stick to the agency work, now that he's recovered, I think.
Next up: The Emperor of All Maladies. A real crabby book.
Book #9: Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man
Author: Bill Clegg
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
I picked this up on a whim, since I've been sitting in the biography section, and I recognized the name. This is the literary agent guy who had a big crash from drug addiction that I heard about! And the book was pretty slim, and the prose looked interesting at first glance, so why not, I thought?
I suppose this book was worth about a whim, but it didn't really get me anywhere. Clegg narrates the story of his addiction and ultimate final binge by alternating chapters between said binge and tales of his growing up, the psychological problems he had that manifested as physical symptoms (here, difficulty with urination), the rise of his attraction to men, etc. This seems like a fine enough structure, but the writing is facile; it really does feel too light for the subject matter much of the time. For the content of the book, which is heavy - an accomplished professional throws it all away for crack! - it doesn't feel like there's much depth to it. It's all surface-y, and what writerly techniques he trots out don't really strike home.
I guess you don't really get that much of a sense of how much he has to lose, his life as a success, because he doesn't really ever accept that he was successful as such himself; he just accepts he has the outward markers of success. And when he does bad things, and people offer to help, you don't really get a sense of why; the other people in the story of Clegg's life as presented are pretty one-dimensional. The binge itself and the paranoia it brings on are written up well, but the backstory side and people besides Clegg don't really come together for me. On the whole, I feel like this was less than the sum of its parts; although he made a lot for this memoir, Clegg might do well to stick to the agency work, now that he's recovered, I think.
Next up: The Emperor of All Maladies. A real crabby book.
