Take, for instance, the scene Doughty encounters visiting Cambodia. “The boring light ceded to a conjuration of pink and orange,’’ he writes. “I looked out the window and saw Khmers zipping around on their mopeds, pack animals, magical chaos. I didn’t want to see the temples, I wanted to sit on a bed and watch bizarre exotic life through a window and a screen. Not to be in it, but to long to be in it.’’ It’s an eloquent summation of junkie life - a perpetual waltz of alienation and desire.
Doughty’s larger story treads familiar ground. A restless, underachieving young man leaves his stultifying suburb for the wilds of New York City, fashions himself into a hipster, forms a band, hits it big, turns to drugs, bottoms out, and winds up sober. Along the way, our hero rubs shoulders with other up-and-comers such as Ani DiFranco and Jeff Buckley, and makes no bones about his towering envy of the latter.
Much of the memoir’s appeal resides in Doughty’s lacerating candor. Far from glorifying the life of a touring musician, he emphasizes the petty feuds that sunk his band and the bruising creative pressures: “I was tortured, freaked out, convinced that the jig was up, that [our producer] would crumple us up and throw us out if I didn’t come up with the goods.’’
To handle the stress, he ingests a disturbing variety of narcotics, engages in joyless groupie sex, and reduces himself to a walking cadaver, one for whom “puking became so normal that I stopped kneeling.’’ At which point, he finds his way to a 12-step meeting, slowly rebuilds his life, and forges a thriving solo career.
But those eager for insights as to Doughty’s creative process (I admit to being one) are bound to be disappointed. His attitude toward the music he produced with Soul Coughing - a heady collage of art pop and heavy-bottomed jazz - is especially derogatory. Doughty, as it emerges, was an insecure 23-year-old when he formed the band. He felt bullied by his mates, all of whom were more accomplished musicians, and a decade older.
The essential flaw of his memoir is that he spends far too many pages talking trash about them. It’s difficult to square these insults with the author’s eventual reverence for the 12-step program, which preaches humility and forgiveness.
Then again, as Doughty concedes, it is in the nature of rock stardom - even minor rock stardom - to believe the normal rules don’t apply to you. His reaction to an ex-girlfriend is typical. “I was the rock star,’’ he writes, “I was the one with the things going on and the awesomeness. What business did she have with an interesting life?’’
I’m not sure this counts as a literary achievement, but “The Book of Drugs’’ actually manages to make the Dionysian dream of rock ’n’ roll sound like a real drag.
