"... Hunter S. Thompson and Iggy Pop and William S. Burroughs. The older me, the one who prefers wine to fizz, wishes [the author] had more to say about things like: a) the elite and vernacular food worlds pre- and post-Bourdain; b) how Bourdain walked a moral tightrope across the conventions of travel writing and reporting, no mean feat for a wealthy white man in skinny jeans; and c) the sense that he was at the vanguard, more so than even the most scrutinized actors, of a new type of American masculinity. Here was an outdoor, rather than an indoor, cat... "
Writes Dwight Garner in "Anthony Bourdain’s New Biography: Light on Subtlety, Heavy on Grit
'Down and Out in Paradise,' by Charles Leerhsen, is an unvarnished account of a turbulent life" (NYT).
Garner walks a moral tightrope reviewing a book that is not the book that he would like to read. To what extent is a reviewer obliged stick to whether an author did a good job of what he decided to do?
There's also this: "Bourdain grew into his looks; his was the kind of face that inspired Talmudic levels of study among women." And: "We learn he Googled the name Asia Argento — the Italian actress with whom he had a torrid, messy affair — several hundred times in the last three days of his life, after she rattled him by appearing in public with another man. Their text messages are printed in the book. 'You were reckless with my heart,' Bourdain wrote, before he hanged himself."
Rattled. Indeed. It sounds as though he had become an obsessive stalker.
By the way, I like the book title — "Down and Out in Paradise" — if it is a play — it must be — on the Orwell title "Down and Out in Paris and London."
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