The Book of Drugs: A Memoir by Mike Doughty

The Book of Drugs: A Memoir



Download The Book of Drugs: A Memoir




The Book of Drugs: A Memoir Mike Doughty ebook
Language: English
Page: 256
Format: epub
ISBN: 0306818779, 9780306820502
Publisher: Da Capo Press

Rock musician Doughty, former leader of the band Soul Coughing, makes clear from the start that he loves drugs, especially heroin. He just doesn’t like what they do to him, and at this point in his life, he has no desire to try them again. Cognizant of the James Frey syndrome, Doughty admits that he has changed names in an effort to avoid problems even as he asks, “Isn’t memory itself an act of imagination?” In this conversational, rambling, and picaresque memoir—one without chapter breaks—Doughty recalls a childhood and adolescence where after his sophomore year in high school, he attended an experimental college (“a weird school,” he says) in Massachusetts. He recalls, too, his various druggie activities, including dancing in a club under the influence of acid and snorting heroin in a basement dressing room. Although Doughty’s many drug escapades become a bit redundant after a while, anyone with an interest in pop culture generally and rock music in particular should appreciate this insider’s account of life on the road. --June Sawyers

Publishers Weekly, 10/3/11
“Hardly your typical rock star memoir. Doughty is brutally honest about life as an addict…Bringing the writing skill that he has crafted to his underground poetry, magazine articles, and songs, Doughty conveys his message with both despair and humor…A compelling look at one man’s struggle to come to terms with the much-discussed connection between addiction and art.”

New York Daily News, 10/28/11“The leader of the New York band Soul Coughing comes clean about the local music scene as well as his (semi) undiminished love of the high.” TheRumpus.net, 10/20/11
“Doughty’s life, as chronicled in these pages, is not so much a revelation for its narrative arc (kid makes the big time, starts in with the dope, the band breaks up, kid is redeemed), as it is for the astonishingly vital, energized, and natural voice contained in its pages, one which never once had a ghost writer presiding over it, likewise its acerbic and sometimes lacerating honesty.”
Boston Globe, 11/11/11“Engrossing and extremely candid.” Seattle Weekly, 11/9/11“A salacious memoir.” Billboard.com, 12/7/11 “Chronicles his treacherous, intoxicated years as frontman of Soul Coughing in the 90s, through his transition into a fruitful (sober) solo career, with plenty of self-deprecating humor, band squabbles, music biz debauchery, and notable cameos from Jeff Buckley, Dave Matthews and Ani DiFranco and along the way.”
 Library Journal, December 2011“[A] soul-baring memoir…Much more than a musician's autobiography, this is a tale about the resurgence of the human spirit; Doughty captures a little bit of all of us in his journey. Recommended.” Jambands.com, 12/16/11
“Not only an open look by Doughty at his past addiction problems, but a smart, funny, and honest view of the late 80s/early 90s NY music scene, Doughty’s years with the band Soul Coughing, and what it was like to reach the other side of a very dark place. Don’t for a moment think that Mike Doughty has written your typical I-got-clean-and-now-I’m-above-all-that sort of book."
 Relix, January/February 2012“Love stories to drugs that [Doughty] had to quit. Suddenly, the fine points of ‘The Huffer and the Cutter,’ about love between damaged people, takes on an even deeper meaning.” Booklist, 12/28/11“[A] conversational, rambling, and picaresque memoir…Anyone with an interest in pop culture generally and rock music in particular should appreciate this insider’s account of life on the road.” The Arts Desk (UK), 12/29/11
“A thrillingly lucid and bravely honest memoir.”
 Boston Globe, 1/10/12“What’s shocking and fresh about The Book of Drugs is how vividly it captures the psychic stasis of addiction…Much of the memoir’s appeal resides in Doughty’s lacerating candor.” Black Book, 1/10/12“A refreshingly genuine rock 'n' roll memoir, with the typical rise and fall of a rock star you might find as the plot of a musical biopic…But it's also a poetic look at the music industry in the late '90s, a seemingly mythical time before the rise of .mp3s and iPods.” Interview, 1/11/12“A layered memoir…A musical person with a passion for prose, Doughty's writing is self-deprecating and honest.” Ink 19, January 2012 “Not your typical memoir…Fascinating, especially for a Doughty fan…This will put some clarity into the man behind the music.” You’re Beautiful, New York, January 2012
“Full of succulent period errata, much like Patti Smith's Just Kids and Eileen Myles' Inferno.  We go to legendary places and meet legendary people along the way…Like Smith and Myles, Doughty recreates downtown Manhattan in his formative moment with adroit and insouciant deftness. One comes to see and know as he has. It is a deeply enchanting backdrop for a deeply disenchanting behind-the-scenes.”
 PopMatters.com, 1/17/12“The Book of Drugs can simultaneously be a rock ‘n’ roll tell-all, harrowing drug account, and a uniquely personal tale all in one, without ever feeling like it’s playing any of those angles deliberately. The reason why The Book of Drugs works is because it’s absolutely unflinching…A highly entertaining read…All in all, The Book of Drugs is an outstanding book. It’s a litany of stories filled to the brim with personality, wit, and humor…One of the best books you’ll read this year.”                                 Addiction Inbox (blog), 1/14/12“It seems almost unfair that a talented singer/songwriter like Doughty should also turn out to be a good writer, but there you have it. The Book of Drugs is informative but not confessional, rock-snarky but tempered with a round of amends. It is also whip-smart and bitterly funny.” 

Salon.com, 1/26/12
“The unspoken rule of rock ‘n’ roll memoirs—especially ones about drug-addled players who get clean—is that the author tends to mend fences rather than sling mud. Mike Doughty: not so much. In The Book of Drugs, the former Soul Coughing frontman writes with a lacerating candor about his family, his narcotic and sexual excesses, the idiocy of the music industry, and, most of all, his former band mates.”

Penthouse, February 2012“Doughty strips away the glamour many people associate with the rock-star life, and his sharp writing reinvigorates even the most overdone clichés about recovery.” The Daily, 1/22/12“Being a Soul Coughing fan, or a fan of Doughty's solo career, isn't required to enjoy reading The Book of Drugs...The warts-and-all approach of The Book of Drugs works.” New York Post, 1/29/12"[A] riveting new memoir." Tucson Citizen, 1/23/12“Brutally honest, stark, cringe-worthy, and unexpectedly witty…This is not your typical rocker-hits-the-skids memoir but one that pulls no punches, and is so candid and brutally honest, it almost sucks the oxygen out of the room…I hope there will be a sequel to this book. It is that satisfying.” The Rogovy Report, 1/30/12
“A funny, haunted tale in which no one—bandmates, producers, fans, A&R reps, fellow musicians such as Jeff Buckley and Redman, and least of all Doughty himself—is spared.” Rolling Stone, 2/16/12“Doughty is a funny, unsparing writer, and if he often comes across as a prick (like most everyone else here), he’s a deeply self-aware one; his eventual salvation – qualified, full of doubts – feels as real and lived as they come.” MTVHive.com, 1/30/12“The Book of Drugs has many of the staples we’ve come to expect from a rock ‘n’ roll tell-all. There are stories about consuming ridiculous amounts of illegal narcotics, and having ridiculous amounts of raunchy sex with people you’ve just met, and hating your bandmates for not respecting your awesomeness, and then kicking the drugs and meaningless sex and stupid band and realizing what’s important in life…But The Book of Drugs manages to transcend its own clichés…Doughty’s misadventures are weirdly relatable, even if you’ve never spent a small fortune on heroin or had sex with strangers in multiple time zones.” Wisconsin State Journal, 2/1/12“Candid and unsparing, and better written than most of its ilk…A powerful read.” This Week in New York, 2/1/12
“A no-holds-barred look at that old music cliché, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” Blurt Online, 2/6/12“Written in more of a conversational collection of anecdotes, remembrances and one-off stories, though largely chronologically, Doughty eschews the traditional chapter by chapter story in the life of, opting for a more original take on the standard rock memoir…His time in Soul Coughing and his relationship with drugs clearly made for some fascinating stories.”  The Nervous Breakdown, 2/6/12“The Book of Drugs reads like a late night conversation, Doughty’s candor charged by a quick wit and a merciless sense of humor that bring an electric edge to the stories within his story…The Book of Drugs is much more than Doughty’s memoir, however—it is a... MORE EBOOKS:







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