The Night of the Gun

A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life - His Own

By: David Carr

Narrated by: Charles Leggett

Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

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 60 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 when 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 20 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.

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.

©2008 David Carr (P)2008 Simon and Schuster, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Whoa: a breathtakingly candid, laugh-out-loud funny, heroically rigorous, consistently riveting, and deeply moving account of a nightmarish descent and amazing redemption." (Kurt Andersen)
"David Carr's The Night of the Gun reinvents the memoir genre by applying a dose of journalistic integrity. Carr's style is as elegant as his saga is gritty, and the story of his life is simply extraordinary. " (Jeffrey Toobin)

Wow! What an incredibly well written story.

I found myself completely drawn into this man's Inner hell. The story is exceptionally well written and it was rather amazing to travel through his past as he learned it.

Charles Leggett's Performance Stands Out...

If you could sum up The Night of the Gun in three words, what would they be?

This is a mordant account of David Carr's struggle with addiction and trying to account for that past in reconciling it with a sober and successful present. I recommend it if you like stories about hitting bottom and finding the way back.

What other book might you compare The Night of the Gun to and why?

I don't know, maybe Mary Karr's Lit? Anything in the genre of addiction/substance abuse memoirs?

What about Charles Leggett’s performance did you like?

This was the most brilliant part of the book. Leggett inhabited Carr's narrative personality so distinctively that if I were to have met the late David Carr (RIP David), I probably would've been disappointed that he didn't live up to Leggett's performance. Moreover, Leggett completely and convincingly gives himself over to the other voices and characters in the book-- and he's on point with the Minnesotan accent! If I'm on the fence about a book see he's narrating it, I'll be off the fence and into the book-- he's that committed to the performance. Great work.

Any additional comments?

Carr's a brilliant writer.

Could.. not.. Stop... Listening

This is a story about a junkie, a junkie who just happens to be a fantastic writer. I listened to it every free second I could. One of the best audible books I've gotten so far.

Self-important, abrasive, and ungracious

The reviews of this book are interestingly polarized. I realize this was a memoir of addiction, but it managed to sound more like a proud, even slightly awed recounting of the author’s past exploits rather than a sober inventory of them. Particularly the way the author spoke about his past romantic partners seemed disturbingly callous. The voice actor’s sarcastic tone and overly deliberate (glacially slow) cadence made it even more difficult to listen to. This is the first audiobook I’ve ever felt compelled to power through on double speed.

So very smug

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

My friend in recovery thinks this book is the best biography about addiction ever. I found David Carr to be unbearably impressed with himself. and the narration just made it so much worse. My said friend is also a narcissist, and kind of unbearable as well, so I guess birds of a feather flock together....

Has The Night of the Gun turned you off from other books in this genre?

No. I enjoy gritty books about people who triumph over huge obstacles, such as drug addiction. The human heart naturally cheers for the underdog who ultimately succeeds with flying colors. There is just something really stinky about this guy. He is really annoying.

What didn’t you like about Charles Leggett’s performance?

He reads David Carr like some pseudo Hunter S. Thompson swashbuckling rogue. Almost like debauchery porn. Ugh. And the meek candy glossed voices of the people interviewed is just unbearable and nauseating. All men and women interviewed think David Carr was just this really awesome guy who happened to be shooting coke. They all seem to possess wide eyed admiration, and are childish, cardboard and colorless when set against the "almighty, wildly fun and genius DAVID CARR".

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

It was listenable. Could tolerate it as a backdrop while I worked.

Any additional comments?

Wouldn't want to meet him in "the rooms". Obviously he doesn't have any need to meet me either, since there are already 1000 people walking around with t-shirts that read "A Close And Personal Friend Of David Carr". Perhaps there are a few extra t-shirts around for the likes of my ego-centric friend who adores this guy.

Like Watching a Train Wreck

Carr's self-destructive, self-indulgent, narcisstic and totally selfish life is laid out with jumps back and forth in time which can be annoying. He really needed a good editor because the last third of the story dragged like molasses. When he admitted to allowing his brother to settle his debts pennies on the dollar -- an unofficial bankruptcy -- that did it for me. He did, after all, obtain the services or purchase the things he decided he could not afford to pay for because he was drunk or drugged out when he purchased/obtained them. Why people like him think, ok, it will be hard for me to pay my debts . . . so I won't, and think that is acceptable is a mystery to me. I also can't imagine why exposing his hellatious life of rotten decisions would in some way help and not deeply embarrass his children. My guess is he did it for money. Having said all this, I admit I listened to almost the whole thing -- skipping several chapters during said boring last third.

Unhealthy

Unfortunately I could only get through half this book. Although well written, it was very sad. Having had personal experience with the topic, I found it an excruciating blow by blow and a deep dive into a hell that anyone who has made it out of finds disturbing.
After 7 hours I could no longer listen.

very very boring

the book is repetitive and nothing novel. The author, keeps repeating a very brief incident without giving is substance. Avoid if possible!

Could not get into it

I commend the author for bravely and candidly telling his story. I just could not handle the lack of linearity. Listened as an audiobook and it did not hold my attention very well at all.

An Act of Addiction

As a psychiatric nurse, lawyer, and the child of many generations of alcoholics, I have some experience in the world in which Mr. Carr moves. The author freely acknowledges this book is an act of overt narcissism. More importantly, however, it is an act of addiction. Mr. Carr merely trades his self-involved drinking and using for self-involved writing. The aggrandizement of his actions, good and bad, is as toxic and revealing as would be watching him tip a glass or snort a line. In the guise of telling the journalistic "whole truth," Mr. Carr settles scores with old adversaries and ingratiates himself to old friends. Ninth stepping this ain't. This book manages to be shameless and shameful at the same time. If Mr. Carr truly embraced the principles of recovery he reports to hold so sacred, he would have made his amends and this journey in privacy and humility. We all have dark moments, some as dark as Mr. Carr's, but to shout them from the parapets of Simon & Schuster is to debase the real drama and struggle in order to sell books.
I am astonished at the fact that most reviewers laud Mr. Carr's prose style; it is royally purple and ridiculously melodramatic. His penchant for overusing words like "prosaic" and "trope" is pedantic and amateurish.
After the 13 hours required to listen to this book, I wish I could dismiss it as just another badly acted Lifetime Movie. It is far worse than that. That any publisher could do anything but embarrassedly pass on this book speaks volumes (pun intended) about the publishing industry. My only recommendation for Night of the Gun and its author is more meetings, many, many more meetings.