July 2009 - Italy

Investigative journalist investigates the momories of his past stuggle of drug addiction and then alcoholsm, only to learn that he had the gun ( )

Autobiographical tales featuring survivors of drug addiction and substance abuse have always been popular. There is something intriguing about listening as someone describes hitting rock bottom, and then somehow managing to miraculously turn themselves around.

Of course, such books are so popular that one must sometimes wonder whether the facts have been embellished for the sole purpose of entertainment. The debacle surrounding A Million Little Pieces alerted the literary community to the dangers behind that. While biographies involve investigations on behalf of the author, autobiographies become suspect, as the possible motivations of the self-diarists make them unreliable witnesses at best.

This is where David Carr's book steps away from the rest of the pack. The Night of the Gun almost doesn't qualify as an autobiography. He remembers very little of what actually occurred during his days of drug abuse, and what he does remember is almost wholly unreliable. So, be an investigative reporter, he uses the skills on hand to delve into the mystery that is his own life.

This is where Carr's book leaves the others behind. He wanders through the down and out periods of his life with a grim curiosity that never lapses into self-pity or melodrama. He could be writing about somebody else entirely, and in some ways, he is. His style isn't emotionless; one would have to be truly cold and indifferent not to feel something while looking back on some of the things Carr did had had done to him. But there is a slight detachment from the source material that keeps his observations from becoming self-serving or, even worse, self-pitying. He not only makes no excuses for his own actions, he doesn't even understand some of them himself.

Carr's book will appeal to fans of similar books, such as Permanent Midnight, but don't expect a carbon copy of the format. If Carr's story doesn't appear to have the obviously uplifting ending or tone that you were expecting, that's because it wasn't meant to be that kind of book. Carr isn't telling us his story so we can learn from his mistakes. He exploring his own painful past, like probing the raw nerve beneath a sore tooth, because he just can't bring himself to leave it behind, at last not without knowing what it all must have appeared from the outside looking in. ( )

Carr does a great job conveying what it's like to have serious, life-screwing addiction, its progression, and its ills. Think "Million Little Pieces," but this is actually real. ( )

Based on the stats to the side of this page, I’d guess that those readers, including myself, who took a dim view of this book are far outnumbered by a generally receptive audience. One could conclude that, on the whole, only those readers who enjoyed the book are likely to take the time to record it in their LibraryThing account and write a review of it. I am anomalous then: not only did I dislike David Carr’s memoir, The Night of the Gun, but here I am, dutifully warning my fellow readers to shy away from it.

Carr is himself something of an anomaly (in reality, if not in “type”): the addict who made good. After spending his twenties and thirties as a coke addict, crackhead and raving psychotic, Carr managed to pull himself together, maintain (for the most part, with recent slip-ups) nearly twenty years clean, raise two daughters and succeed professionally, landing a job at The New York Times. It’s a story you’ve seen in a dozen movies, but seems impossible in real life.

Musing on his past, Carr decided to investigate it as he would any other story, as a reporter, to learn if it all happened as he remembered it (specifically the eponymous “Night of the Gun”). Carr’s approach was novel and promising—by employing journalistic techniques, he quickly learned some disturbing things about his past and who he had once been, and the story becomes, to a degree, the study of the mutability (and transmutability) of memory. Interviews and court documents reveal a narrative that Carr himself had once lived but of which he was now only dimly aware.

Sadly, Carr’s method promises more excitement than it can deliver, and it becomes a gimmick. Yes, he interviews old friends and associates, but the revelations gleaned from those conversations are not as surprising or significant to the readers as they must have been to Carr. Carr’s discussion of memory is shallow and, given the potential of the topic, ultimately detracts from the book.

Carr’s narrative is at its strongest and most focused as he documents his addiction. When he begins discussing his discovery, the narrative unspools and the story loses its power as Carr waxes treacly, invoking wonder at his daughters, the value of hard work, and the redemptive power of love. It’s all fine, but it’s dull, poorly done and self-indulgent. One gets the impression that this began as a story for the Times—it would have been better had it stayed that way.

The Night of the Gun is not all bad. Carr is a talented writer and rarely fails to paint a scene vividly or sketch someone’s character quickly, and he often employs a good turn of phrase (all skills of the journalist). Carr’s portrayal of his addiction and descent into (near) madness is incredibly well done. Carr was on the right track with his story—this is something of interest here for readers—and his methodology and concerns are intriguing, if underdeveloped. Carr argues that everyone’s story deserves to be told. I can’t argue with that, but I think he and I might quibble over the length alloted each narrative. ( )

Written in reaction to the backlash over "the more fiction than truth" memoirs like A Million Little Pieces, David Carr's Night of The Gun takes a nearly scientific approach to the reporting of a life of addiction and recovery.

At the start the book is a fascinating musing on the difference between what actually happened and how we remember it. But the novelty of this device ultimately tires and we are left with a brutal account of an ultimately unsympathetic character who makes it nearly impossible to root for him.

Night of The Gun does have it's high points, but most of them come in the first half of the book. The backside of the book is an exercise in endurance with Carr turning his focus to the tragedies of the people around him and an account of him watching his carefully constructed world fall a part.

At the end of this little experiment of a book I came away feeling exhausted and unfulfilled. The conclusion I reached was that I'd rather read the mostly true recollections of someone going through he'll than the blow by blow reporting based on the mostly true recollections of others.

A Million Little Pieces may be filled with a million little white lies, but I enjoyed that book a million times more than this one. Memoir isn't really pure nonfiction and that's a good thing as a storyteller will always triumph a reporter when it comes to creating a compelling personal stories. ( )