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Title: The Other Great Depression: How I'm overcoming, on a daily basis, at least a million addictions and disfunctions and finding a spiritual (sometimes) life
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Manufacturer: PublicAffairs
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| The Other Great Depression: How I'm overcoming, on a daily basis, at least a million addictions and disfunctions and finding a spiritual (sometimes) life by PublicAffairs 4 out of 12 steps to a good book | Towards the end of this book Lewis, remembering when he started the book project and how tough it was to build up the steam to write and keep writing observes:
"Oftentimes I sat motionless for hours, as if mummified, just doodling random thoughts or just aimlessly wandering around my house thinking that my story was meaningless."
Well, Richard, in this one respect your instincts for this project were right on the money.
The problem with this book is that it is very poorly organized, bordering on being incoherent. Furthermore, time and again he bumps up against an honest confession of some drunken mishap only to pull his punch at the end.
Will some earnest Lewisologist have the stomach to count the number of times he tells us that he embarassed himself at a [fill in the occasion or restaurant or party with other celebs] only to pull the veil of vagueness over the final humiliation. We want the goods, dammit!
Is there any other reason to read a self-indulgent celebrity whinefest?
One of his anecdotes that worked was the time on the plane when, thinking he was impressing his fellow celebrities every time he staggered to the bathroom, he finally discovered to his horror that part of his shirt was sticking out of his fly.
That one had a beginning, a middle and [no pun intended] an end.
If you are going to spend an entire book alternating between bragging about your showbiz pals and rich lifestyle and flagellating yourself (addiction is not friendly to rational thinking) at least have the wit to make the anecdotes interesting.
He is a very funny guy with a beautifully cracked sense of humor. I remember a great line of his to the effect that his grandmother used to sit around doing needlepoint, sewing her epitaph. Great image!
I hope Richard Lewis tries this again, this time leading with his strength, which is humor. Really funny stuff is a high art form. Anyone can do incoherence and boredom. | | The Other Great Depression: How I'm overcoming, on a daily basis, at least a million addictions and disfunctions and finding a spiritual (sometimes) life by PublicAffairs Aptly Titled Book | | I really like Richard Lewis. He is a very funny man. But the title of this book is so apt. Reading it was...kind of...depressing. But the book I'm sure has much in it that would be very helpful to those caught up in addiction. What makes it worthwhile to the rest of us is the painful glimpse it gives you into the mind and psyche of someone dealing with Depression. And the descriptions Richard gives you of his relationships with his mother and father are heartbreaking. But the description of the redemptive scene between him and his dying mother in the nursing home is worth wading through some of the other weightier areas of the book to get to. This book is very painfully honest. It would have been easier for him to gloss over some of the rough stuff and would probably have certainly made him look better, but to battle addiction I think brutal honesty is probably called for and Richard certainly comes through in this regard. | | The Other Great Depression: How I'm overcoming, on a daily basis, at least a million addictions and disfunctions and finding a spiritual (sometimes) life by PublicAffairs Must read for Richard Lewis fans | | A must read for Richard Lewis fans, fans of comedy, or anyone interested in addiction. He is an amazing man. | | The Other Great Depression: How I'm overcoming, on a daily basis, at least a million addictions and disfunctions and finding a spiritual (sometimes) life by PublicAffairs depressing | | I love Richard Lewis, but this book was actually ... depressing. I had to stop reading and just skim the rest. It was repetitious. I never really understood what pain of his childhood he was trying to escape by drinking. I think some editor should have fixed the tone to make it either funnier or more-serious-and-readable. It was too shticky to be meaningful, but too serious to be funny. | | The Other Great Depression: How I'm overcoming, on a daily basis, at least a million addictions and disfunctions and finding a spiritual (sometimes) life by PublicAffairs Painful, shocking......a soul stripped bare. | I would personally like to hit Mr. Lewis on the head for his three year romance with one of the greatest fantasy figures of the seventies, Baronss Nina van Pallandt. If you were a teenage or adult male at that time, you were reduced to jelly by her picture. You knew she was not for mere mortals but for billionaire mega studs in Cannes, or on the Riviera.
So who gets her? A shleppy Jewish standup comic from NY, whose father was, and this is so perfect, and so very Jewish, a caterer.
As a barmitzvah bandleader, I have spent many years fighting, working with, and plotting the forceful overthrow of many Jewish caterers. Not one of whose children ever dated anyone faintly resembling Nina van Pallandt.
Let me say this. Being a standup comedien is one of the most difficult jobs there is. Mr. Lewis succeeded admirably, and yet his personal demons, or many would say his progammed genes, and the chemical constuct of his body resulted in a breakdown fueled by drugs and alchohol. The scenario is familiar and Mr. Lewis tells it well. My vocabulary contains many of the profanities used by Mr. Lewis, but I think it was a wrong decision to use them this liberally. Mr. Lewis describes his father as the Lee J. Cobb waterfront union leader in "On the Waterfront". You know how the longshoremen speak. The only profanity in the movie was when Brando said to Karl Malden, the priest, "You go to hell". That's it. Not bad for one of the greatest movies ever made.
My life has paralleld Mr. Lewis. It's a war with no armistace, and he seems to be doing well, and I wish him well. Those who like the book may want to see "Drunks", a pretty good movie starring Mr. Lewis, and the late Howard Rollins. | | The Other Great Depression: How I'm overcoming, on a daily basis, at least a million addictions and disfunctions and finding a spiritual (sometimes) life by PublicAffairs Product Description | At the age of 44, renowned comedian Richard Lewis found himself on a gurney in the ER, toxic with alcohol, and hallucinating from excess cocaine use. The same neuroses and dysfunctions that had been the basis for his successful stage persona and inspired his best material had, it seemed, turned on him.
How he got there, how he finally got on the road to recovery, and how he copes with being Richard Lewis sober on a daily basis are the subjects of this very funny, deeply honest, inspiring, but very untreacly book. USA Today called it "candid and inspirational.… A journey through Lewis' personal Inferno to eventual salvation." |
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