Posts tagged review

For once it’s nice to read about a celebrity who experiences success and notoriety after their bout with drugs and alcoholism.  I love Ferguson’s humor, and am only slightly disappointed that more of it doesn’t come through on the page.  His personality comes across best when the story is rooted in Scotland, physically or metaphorically.

Scottish people love to dance. Only certain types of dancing, though.  The kind that comes with a set of rules and instructions.  We are, after all, the great engineers.  Organized stamping and clapping or structured reels and skips are what the Scots want – God forbid anything involving sexiness or free expression, no fluid or sensual movements, please.  No squeezy buttocks pushing against groins to a salsa beat, that’s just the kind of thing that leads to people talking about their feelings.

As youthful debauchery transitions into growing celebrity, it is perhaps inevitable that the book loses some of its anarchic self-awareness and slips into something of a procedural for unlikely success.  But I found it impossible to stop reading this breezy and engaging story, spun with an outsider’s perspective that avoids many of the usual tropes of an American rags-to-riches tale.

Genuinely moving and insightful, the book serves as reminder to follow your interests, even (or especially) when they lead to unfamiliar territory.