Alan Alda is one of the good guys. He's always likeable when you see him perform (at least I've never seen him play the bad guy, which does not, I realize, mean that he has not done so). He always seems like the next door neighbor you'd like to hang out over the back fence and chat with.
It's delightful to read this book and discover that it reads the same way we've all known Alda from his performances and his guest show appearances.
This is not your typical Hollywood biography, written in chronological order and filled with tidbits about other celebrities. This is a very personal story which reads like memories that pop into his head and are written down as they come. The book grips you from it's opening sentence, "My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six," and goes on to detail his extraordinary life growing up backstage in a bawdy vaudeville house.
Alda had a life-changing moment when he nearly died on a trip to Chile and it started the wheels turning to produce this delightful read, which he wrote without a ghost writer. Of all the books I read this year, I think I enjoyed this book the most.
No comments:
Post a Comment