Celebrities

I thought this book was compelling because of its subject, and it's well written, with logical, linear threads.

But I wanted to read more about Fischer's breakdown, and what led him to withdraw from conventional life. I wanted to see Fisher from the inside. I don't know if that's even possible, or if he ever sought counseling or even knew or cared that his life was in a "move" more baffling than his most challenging chess match.

I'd love to see another writer, or even this one, continue to plunder the depths where "Endgame" leaves off.

I have been a Richard Lewis fan since I started watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on DVD.

This book, read by the author, is an insightful and profound odyssey into the depths of alcoholism and addiction, combined with his spiritual journeys in recovery. There were some excellent sound-bytes and one-liners and I had to keep rewinding in order to memorize them.

I found the delivery a little flat in Part 1 but he warms to his subject and sounds more animated in Part 2. I think the book was originally written some time in the early 2000's, with an "Afterward" from 2007. I couldn't understand why he refers to flight attendants as "stewardesses" unless the outdated term was purposely used in the context of the past.

I'll give this one a "five" as the dominant theme is that chemical sobriety is only a beginning, and that it takes work to stay on the path, while still having fun.

The predominant feature of this memoir is that is it almost entirely without conflict. There is no personal growth through adversity, no "coming of age", no sense of achievement that comes from meeting personal and professional challenges, nor any sense of "is that all there is?". Keaton's bulimia and her mother's Alzheimer's could have been main structural beams on which to hang the stories, but instead these issues are treated as incidental background players.

As a reader of about the same chronological age as Keaton, I remember well the Annie Hall persona and how it affected me at a time in my life where my own persona was not as well defined. How I envied her - the edgy outfits, the life, the blathering comic affect and seeming befuddlement turned into advantage. Things have changed for me, as well as for her. She's now a successful well-known actor but no longer someone I envy, as her looks and style have become mainstream and I have become more like the Annie Hall of the 60's. Sans the comic but clumsy befuddlement, of course.

The main thing that comes across to me in this memoir is not the idolizing of her mother, which actually works quite well as a series of dueling journals, not the odd and preciously stage-worthy names she gives her children, names which really are more appropriate for household pets. It's the fact that Keaton needs the creative charisma of a Woody Allen or a Warren Beatty, or the dark presence of a Jack Nicholson or Al Pacino in order to really shine. By herself she is just an average actor with an average mother who likes to write. And the family life she presents, while enviable in the sense of ease and comfort, is bereft of any kind of conflict or challenge. Her family is overflowing with love and goodness and movie roles fall into her lap, and by herself, Diane is just half of an equation.

Someone once said this about writing: "Want a good story? Part One, put someone in a tree. Part Two, get him out." The trouble with "Then Again" is there's no tree.