The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes

The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes perfectly captures the wistful mood of Twin Peaks. At times, it strikes a hopeful note, with a young Dale Cooper longing to do well in the world and find his place, and then he experiences tragedy, either in the loss of his mother, the first girl he liked, or both a mentor and lover as a result of the events surrounding fellow Special Agent Windom Earle. Author Scott Frost, brother of series co-creator Mark Frost, perfectly captures the turbulence an adolescent would experience both going through puberty and coming of age in the late 1960s and 1970s. While the "autobiography" does not contain any spoilers for the show, it's best read after watching the series since show more it elaborates on elements of Cooper's background that forward the plot in certain episodes. Frost perfectly ends this with Cooper's recording prior to his drive to Twin Peaks, setting up the events of the show and the audiobook, "Diane..." - The Twin Peaks Tapes of Agent Cooper. show less

This “Twin Peaks” train keeps on chugging along!!! And while the revival of the show has been both wonderful and absolutely confounding, I have also been turning to the books that came before it. This time instead of focusing on poor dead Laura Palmer, we are getting to know a little bit more about the always optimistic, super enthusiastic, but also ultimately a bit tragic, Dale Cooper, the main protagonist of the show. Dale Cooper is one of my favorite characters of all time, his bubbly earnestness completely charming and absolutely adorable. I was a little skeptical that this book would be able to do him justice, as Kyle Maclachlan just brings him to complete and total life. BUT, I have GREAT news. This book pretty much manages to show more do it. A warning, though, if you want to see anything else about the town itself and it’s inhabitants, sadly it ends right before Cooper arrives. This is all Cooper, all the time, and while that was totally fine by me, it’s good to know that this is his story, not that of the beloved town.

Much like “The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer”, you have to go into this book with the knowledge of the show to really get anything from it. We get to see Dale Cooper’s life through his ‘tapes’, transcribed audio recordings that start at his thirteenth birthday. And boy, did it just sound like good ol’ Coop to me as I read them. It really shouldn’t surprise me, as Scott Frost was a writer on the show, but I found myself smiling and cackling with glee as I read this book, it’s content far less heavy than “The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer”. Even thirteen year old Dale Cooper is filled with joy and wonder for the world around him, as well as picking up on little hints and details about the people in his life that sheds a little light on things that happen to him later in life. This book explores more of the theory that Cooper is deeply intuitive to the point of being a bit psychic, and expands upon it through his childhood and his family members (specifically his mother; seems that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree in this regard). I enjoyed reading about how he saw the changing times of the 1960s, how he viewed his coming of age, and what life was like for him when he first came to the F.B.I. I was ESPECIALLY waiting for mention of one of my other favorite characters on the show, Albert Rosenfield, because boy do I kind of ship the two of them, and without spoiling anything I can tell you that THIS BOOK DID NOT DISAPPOINT!

But along with the fan service that felt totally designed for me, this book also gave me a dark side of Coop that isn’t seen as much in the original series. His tapes do serve as his own diary in spite of the fact that he’s sending a fair number of them to Diane, and there were moments of despair and existential angst that I’m not as used to seeing in my man Cooper. He did have his darker moments in Season 2, and in the revival BOY are things bleak for him, but in this book I felt like we got to see a whole other side to Cooper that I tend to forget, or did even know, existed. He expounds upon the losses of the important women in his life with a subtle grief, or will disappear for months at a time, and I just felt like this book does add a new darkness to the character who can be seen holding chocolate bunnies or gleefully experiencing coniferous trees with childlike wonder. Sometimes this could be a bit too much, especially when we get to the Wyndam and Caroline Earle part of his life, but in the right amounts it was very pathos ridden and melancholy.

Plus, there were genuine moments of creepiness that I thoroughly enjoyed. Be it the brutal natures of some of the crimes that Dale investigated, or the weird moments of odd rambling that he would do with his tapes in darker, more harried mind spaces, there were parts of this book that gave me chills down my spine. Nothing was totally scary or freaky, but there would be moments that were turned just a little bit odd, and that when I thought about it for a moment I just felt weirded out. That’s the power of “Twin Peaks”, the little moments that are just a bit askew, but completely set you on edge. This book is filled with them.

Do you have to read this book if you are a “Twin Peaks” fan? Probably not. It didn’t give me any new insights into anything, really. But it’s a fun little bonus that can be put to the mythos of the series as a whole, especially seeing some of these things being played out or alluded to in the new revival. If you can’t get enough of “Twin Peaks” and are still scratching your head over some of the stuff in the new series, “The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper” will probably suit you just fine. show less

As a tie-in with the superbly weird TV show Twin Peaks, this book goes over the life of Agent Cooper from his youth when he receives his first tape recorder for Christmas until he is called to Twin Peaks to investigate a murder. I love this character and feel like he was criminally underused in the prequel film Fire Walk With Me, so I fully enjoyed this. It’s so easy to hear the whole thing in Kyle MacLachlan’s voice (even the parts featuring young Dale). Like other Twin Peaks tie-in books, you really need to have watched the original series before reading this. It was published a year before Fire Walk With Me came out, which accounts for the differences in Theresa Banks’ murder investigation between the book and the movie. It’s show more a fun little book and if you’re a Twin Peaks die-hard, it’s well worth seeking out. show less

Erinnert sich noch jemand an Twin Peaks? In diesem Buch findet man Information über das Leben von Cooper, bevor er nach Twin Peaks kam. Spannend geschrieben, in Tagebuchform, für alle Twin Peaks Fans ein Muss.

Hilarious and also very sad, much like the series itself. I was afraid it would be humiliatingly bad, but Cooper's voice is quite consistent, and while there are a few points that don't quite match up with the show and the movie, plot-wise, they're not too far off. Fell madly in love with Cooper; didn't want it to end.

LOVED this book. I thought it was fascinating to get a peek into the mind of Dale Cooper. Unfortunately, I thought I would also get an idea of what happened to him when he 'disappeared'. No such luck! Great book, made me love Dale a little more, as if that was possible. Great to see that there was a little flexibility and 'dirty' side to the straight and narrow Dale Cooper.

Ah, o Coop! Desde a adolescência ele é muito fofo e inteligente, aliás, ao ler este livro dá até um aperto no coração de tudo que o que aconteceu depois que ele entrou no lodge. Enfim, eu não diria que este seja especialmente um bom livro, mas é o Coop e o Coop sempre vale a pena.