“When I Met Heroin, It Was True Love”

–Nikki Sixx, the introduction to The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life of a Shattered Rock Star.

Oh! Hi! Long time, no see. How have you been?

I apologize for the unexpected hiatus. Not long after my last entry, things got a little hectic, and I let my CLC duties slip. However, I’m back, and there will be a better updating schedule. I’m not able to update once a week, but it will definitely be less than a month between entries, I promise!

Before I go into my latest review, I have some sad news: the book I was going to review after Rue McClanahan‘s (RIP), Alyssa Milano’s Safe at Home: Confessions of a Baseball Fanatic, had to go back to the library before I got to take notes on it. So, instead, I present to you the CLC take on Nikki Sixx’s The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life of a Shattered Rock Star.

For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Sixx, he is the guitarist of the greatest hair band of the eighties, Mötley Crüe. The Crüe is responsible for such hard hits as “Girls, Girls, Girls,” “Dr. Feelgood” and “Shout at the Devil.” Known for their killer look and loud, fierce sound, the Crüe spent the better part of the decade of decadence as the greatest rock stars–sex, drugs and rock and roll was their mantra.

Now, based on that description, I’m sure many people think that what Sixx has to say about his wild days is either “totally awesome, brah, totally awesome” or they dismiss it, thinking he’s another rock star trying to write to make some money.

If anything, my friends, Sixx’s memoir serves as a cautionary tale.

The Heroin Diaries is not written in a typical memoir fashion. Unlike, say, Marie Osmond or Paul Feig, he is not writing these stories from memory. Instead, he published his journals from Christmas 1986 to Christmas 1987 (the date of his infamous overdose, where he was pronounced DOA at the hospital. Luckily, two shots of adrenaline revived him.) and added his reflections/interviews with people who were there during his addiction, making for a more sobering (for lack of a better term) experience.

Disclosure: I first read The Heroin Diaries three years ago. I pre-ordered it in hardback, excited to read it as I had watched someone I love go through a very nasty heroin addiction for a while. To me, biographies/memoirs in which the subject dealt with any sort of addiction, particularly hard drugs, were and still are very therapeutic. They give me some insight about what an addict goes through, it gives me a better understanding.

When the book arrived at my off-campus house, I was ecstatic. I couldn’t wait to read it. I went to campus early one day, to read a few pages before class started. I would resume when the hour-long class was over. Well, my readers, I never made it to class that day. I stayed in the library for a good two-two and a half hours reading the first half of the book, which I then put down and didn’t touch for a week as I was so shook up by what I had just read. It was that powerful.

Reading it again, I was still shook up. Even though I knew what was coming, I still felt overwhelmed and saddened by Sixx’s story. The entries at the height of his addiction really brought me down. It’s easy to dismiss him as a spoiled rock star, but when you’re that addicted, you become childlike. You regress.

So, in short, I do not recommend The Heroin Diaries as a beach read. I recommend it for a rainy day read, or if you know someone going through a similar situation. Yes, it will be hard, but it’s comforting to know that your friend/mom/dad/brother/sister/other relative/etc. isn’t alone (as heartbreaking and awful addiction is.)

Next time: something more lighthearted. As to what, exactly, I’m not sure. But it will be much, much lighter.

“From Now On, When My Name Appears In Print, It’d Better Read ‘Blanche Devereaux COMMA 39!'”

–Rue McClanahan as Blanche Devereaux, The Golden Girls.

Lately, Betty White has got all the attention. She hosted SNL last weekend, has popped up in various romcoms, and now has a facebook campaign to convince the Academy to pick her to host the Oscars next March. Life sure is swell for Betty. And while there is no doubt Ms. White is awesome (did you know she was one of the first female television producers?) we cannot forget Rue McClanahan, aka Blanche Devereaux. Time Magazine had the balls to add McClanahan to their “100 Least Influential People List,” simply because she’s not all over the place like White. I disagree, as would any reader of her 2007 autobiography.

McClanahan is a smart woman. She knows that she is now, and will always be identified by the Blanche Devereaux persona–bold, sassy, fabulous. Like Marie Osmond and Wendy Williams before her, you feel as if you’re talking to her one on one, over a cup of coff–er, a plate of cheesecake. However, you won’t find any scandal or trash talk, not even from behind the scenes of The Golden Girls. (I always seem to pick the friendliest celebrities, don’t I?) Although McClanahan does give a grading system to her men, she is never malicious. And while she has faced many obstacles in her life, she never dwells on the hardship or asks for pity. She’s just telling us about her life, and frankly, that’s just fantastic.

Have you read My First Five Husbands…And The Ones Who Got Away? Did you enjoy dipping your toes into the lake known as the woman who played Blanche? Let me know what you think in the comments!

Apologies for the delay in posting, especially to Christine 🙂

Next Week: Batter up with Alyssa Milano’s Safe at Home: Confessions of a Baseball Fanatic.

Welcome to the Lit Club!

Hello! I’m Furious K. You may remember me from my last blog, no bells, no whistles, just words, which was supposed to chronicle my journey in writing my novel. Instead, I found myself dealing with both unemployment and the baggage that comes with it. Namely, boredom. I didn’t have much want to write, and as many of you remember, I was very reluctant to share excerpts from my work, thus making for a very boring blog.

Now, I have decided to share one of my new hobbies with y’all–reading celebrity penned novels/memoirs and reviewing them!

This new hobby of mine has grown out of boredom. I had wasted time feeling sorry for myself and playing the “if only…” game (i.e. “if only I had graduated on time, if I only I hadn’t transferred, if only I had decided on a career senior year of high school!” etc.) when I took a trip to my local library with my dad. There, I stumbled upon the memoir section and saw they had two books I had been dying to read, but had been afraid to buy: Fran Drescher’s Enter Whining and Tori Spelling’s sTORI Telling. I had forgotten that libraries are awesome and I could check them out–free!–for a month and return them when I finished.  I went through both books in under a week, returned them, and felt satisfied that I hadn’t spent money to own either book. Why wasn’t I too wild about either book? You’ll just have to come back next week,  where I’ll dissect the works of Ms. Victoria Davey Spelling, better known to you and me as Tori.

Now, some of you are rolling your eyes. Why not review say, current works of fiction, or memoirs written by non-mega celebrities? My reviews are not sugar-coated. I am not being paid by any publishers to talk up these works. I am not going to pretend that Lauren Conrad is the greatest young adult author since Judy Blume or Paula Danziger (R.I.P.) That being said, I’m also not going to tear them down just for the sake of who they are. I will not sit here and say “ugh, Marie Osmond should just stick to smiling and schilling NutriSystem meals while singing fluffy pop songs from the early sixties with Donny and the rest of her family, she can’t write.”  Most of what I will talk about  won’t be so much about writing style and technique, it’ll be about the real story itself. Not so much as to whether it’s made up, but is it enjoyable? What if someone besides Russell Brand or Howie Mandel had written it? Would we still like it?

Anyway, please continue to check in and throw in your two cents! Maybe I missed something, or perhaps you have a different take on a celebrity work. In any case, I can’t wait to get started! See you next week!