|
The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of his Life--His Own | 
 enlarge | Author: David Carr
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy New: $14.49
You Save: $11.51 (44%)
New (29) Used (8) Collectible (1) from $14.39
Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 296
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Simon & Schuster Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 1416541527
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.860092
EAN: 9781416541523
ASIN: 1416541527
Publication Date: August 5, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Amazon Best of the Month, August 2008: In his fabulously entertaining The Kid Stays in the Picture, legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans wrote: "There are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth." David Carr's riveting debut memoir, The Night of the Gun, takes this theory to the extreme, as the New York Times reporter embarks on a three-year fact-finding mission to revisit his harrowing past as a drug addict and discovers that the search for answers can reveal many versions of the truth. Carr acknowledges that you can't write a my-life-as-an-addict story without the recent memoir scandals of James Frey and others weighing you down, but he regains the reader's trust by relying on his reporting skills to conduct dozens of often uncomfortable interviews with old party buddies, cops, and ex-girlfriends and follow an endless paper trail of legal and medical records, mug shots, and rejection letters. The kaleidoscopic narrative follows Carr through failed relationships and botched jobs, in and out of rehab and all manner of unsavory places in between, with cameos from the likes of Tom Arnold, Jayson Blair, and Barbara Bush. Admittedly, it's hard to love David Carr--sometimes you barely like the guy. How can you feel sympathy for a man who was smoking crack with his pregnant girlfriend when her water broke? But plenty of dark humor rushes through the book, and knowing that this troubled man will make it--will survive addiction, fight cancer, raise his twin girls--makes you want to stick around for the full 400-page journey. --Brad Thomas Parsons
Product Description
Do we remember only the stories we can live with? The ones that make us look good in the rearview mirror? In The Night of the Gun, David Carr redefines memoir with the revelatory story of his years as an addict and chronicles his journey from crack-house regular to regular columnist for The New York Times. Built on sixty videotaped interviews, legal and medical records, and three years of reporting, The Night of the Gun is a ferocious tale that uses the tools of journalism to fact-check the past. Carr's investigation of his own history reveals that his odyssey through addiction, recovery, cancer, and life as a single parent was far more harrowing -- and, in the end, more miraculous -- than he allowed himself to remember. Over the course of the book, he digs his way through a past that continues to evolve as he reports it. That long-ago night he was so out of his mind that his best friend had to pull a gun on him to make him go away? A visit to the friend twenty years later reveals that Carr was pointing the gun. His lucrative side business as a cocaine dealer? Not all that lucrative, as it turned out, and filled with peril. His belief that after his twins were born, he quickly sobered up to become a parent? Nice story, if he could prove it. The notion that he was an easy choice as a custodial parent once he finally was sober? His lawyer pulls out the old file and gently explains it was a little more complicated than that.
In one sense, the story of The Night of the Gun is a common one -- a white-boy misdemeanant lands in a ditch and is restored to sanity through the love of his family, a God of his understanding, and a support group that will go unnamed. But when the whole truth is told, it does not end there. After fourteen years -- or was it thirteen? -- Carr tried an experiment in social drinking. Double jeopardy turned out to be a game he did not play well. As a reporter and columnist at the nation's best newspaper, he prospered, but gained no more adeptness at mood-altering substances. He set out to become a nice suburban alcoholic and succeeded all too well, including two more arrests, one that included a night in jail wearing a tuxedo. Ferocious and eloquent, courageous and bitingly funny, The Night of the Gun unravels the ways memory helps us not only create our lives, but survive them.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 An Important Memoir about the Grip of Addiction August 29, 2008
Carr is a skilled journalist (NY Times and Atlantic magazine) who turned his considerable skills on his own life as a drug and alcohol addict. By telling his own story Carr illustrates and helps us to make sense of why drug and alcohol addiction is such a profound and destructive problem. Carr understands his own good luck in surviving and tells a great tale as cleverly illustrated by his mis-rembrance of the title story of "The Night of the Gun". The title story is compellingly described in both the short Amazon video clip accompanying the book description and in the first chapter of the book (available to read online at Amazon).
"Night of the Gun" has been reviewed by both NPRs Charlie Rose who did a 30 minute interview with Carr and by Entertainment Weekly's Jennifer Reese. The Charlie Rose video of the interview with Carr can give you a further idea of Carr's insights and story telling skills; Carr has also excerpted his work in a NY Times article entitled "Me and My Girls" and has a website with video for "The Night of the Gun." The guy can write and knows how to promote his work.
Jennifer Reese says of Carr's effort:
"The epiphanies are fascinating, and the scabs gnarly. A child of a warm Catholic family in suburban Minneapolis, Carr (refreshingly) blames nothing on his upbringing: ''My home was a good one, my parents were wonderful, no one slipped me a Mickey, and if they did, I would have grabbed it with both hands and asked for more.'' His description of the allure of intoxication is as good as any I've ever read: ''When chemicals and karma combusted into bliss, it was mad, mad fun.''
As a nurse who works regularly with those undergoing acute (and most often repeated) drug and alcohol withdrawal I can vouch for the truth of Carr's story as an illustration of the too often unbreakable and destructive grip that addiction has on so many lives. My withdrawal patients have included the homeless and mentally ill and a crack addicted young mother. More often there are run of the mill husbands and wives but also the occasional profoundly alcoholic licensed medical professional.
Carr's memoir is stong stuff which for some will seem to dwell to much on the pleasures of and repeated relapses to addiction. The story is ultimately both hopeful and realistic and highly recommended as a memoir of the destructive obsession and illness of drug addiction.
 Didn't like 1st half; 2nd half is better August 29, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I think the idea of this book was a good one: To compare and contrast the author's memory with others' memories - other people who were actually there.
My main gripe with the first half of the book was that I was bored. The one bright spot in that first 100 pages for me was when Carr explained his first writing assignment - THAT was interesting. Otherwise, all - and I do mean ALL - of his reminisces involve drinking, drugs, and more drinking and drugs. Only the scenery changes (drinking/drugs while fishing, drinking/drugs while at the bar, at parties, including a wedding reception, drinking/drugs in the car, going to get more drugs, getting drugs to other people, etc. etc.)
I also didn't particularly care for Carr's attitude in the beginning of the book. At first, he says he can see where he made some mistakes; he made some unsavory choices that split his existence into half bad guy, half intelligent guy who just went down the wrong path. He admits to some pretty rotten things but then instead of keeping that mind set (meaning some semblance of humility), he jumps into co-workers' glowing reports of his genius ... oh no, this one didn't focus on his drug addiction; all she saw was his great work! And then after that, when remembering (or rather, not remembering) being arrested for assaulting a cab driver, he jokes, "I'm sure the guy deserved it." I didn't think it was funny.
The book changes for the better in the second half. The cancer obviously impacted him hard, and I felt more sympathy and admiration for him when he details his caring for his young girls while he was ill. The best part of the whole book for me was his meeting Jill, his wife. Pure magic. "She wasn't my type." But she was his kind - a good woman who is interesting in her own right.
If you could chop the first half of the book off I'd have been much happier with the book. Yeah, he was addicted to drugs and it was hell (and sometimes seemingly humorous to him) and I get it - but I'd have got it without a lot of the repeating of the same act, different day/setting.
Great Story In Need Of An Editor August 26, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
David Carr has a remarkable story to tell, and he is without question a gifted writer. He also pulls no punches, time and again laying blame where it belongs -- with himself -- for terrible judgments made in a life of addiction, recovery, and backslides to trouble. Carr also takes an interesting approach to reporting his own story -- conducting interviews and research as though he were investigating another person's story. The difficulty is that Carr overwrites, or repeats himself, all too often. There are too many musings about that sort of self-investigation; far too many espisodes of crack-addled madness; too many aphorisms about second chances, missed chances, and so on. I believe the manuscript runs close to four hundred pages; it could have been pared by a hundred or so pages, and made for a far better book.
You Can't Know the Whole Truth August 22, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
So says David Carr. "But if there is one, it lies in the space between people." Something haunting in that line, and relevant to anyone regardless of whether they share Carr's story of self-destruction and recovery. This reformed thug, drug addict and spiraling loser pulls out of the dive at a critical moment, rescues his infant twin daughters (or is it the other way around?) and rebuilds a shattered career to become a columnist for The New York Times. It's a harrowing story -- part crime saga, part family heartwarmer -- but the remarkable thing is how he did it. Not trusting his own memory of events, Carr retraced the steps from That Guy to This Guy, using his skills as a journalist to interview his old friends, junkies, dealers, lawyers, counselors, to connect those dots. What makes The Night of the Gun transcend the everyday memoir is his exploration of the vagaries of memory -- who remembers what, and when. Stories retold become mythologized, sins he can't bear to see forgiven absolve themselves through forgetfulness, and the question of who pulled that gun on whom becomes more existential than whodunnit. Carr shows that memory becomes a biased informant, whispering that things weren't so bad, not our fault, and yet the truth can be found for those daring enough to confront it. As a fellow reporter, this book was especially compelling. An excellent, riveting read.
The Nigh of the Gun August 22, 2008
0 out of 11 found this review helpful
Even though I haven't read this book yet. I WANT TO. It sounds interesting. Ever thought of making it a search inside the book feature for your book? Can't wait to buy it.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
