davscomur's reviews
189 reviews

This book is not as bad as Major’s previous Holmes’s effort, The Back-to-Front Murder. However, it is still terrible, nonsensical, and incredibly boring.  

The word “tragic” in the subtitle of this biography, the first (to my knowledge) of drummer Jim Gordon, doesn’t do its subject justice. Gordon’s lifelong struggles with mental illness were exacerbated by his genetic predisposition to addiction, by substance abuse that was extreme even by classic rock era standards, and by the limitations of medical knowledge about/treatment of schizophrenia during the ‘70s and ‘80s. The result was a completely broken human who committed increasingly violent acts against women, culminating in (mild spoiler ahead but not really) the truly horrific murder of his own mother. 

The story itself is gripping, largely because Gordon was so famous and so in-demand as a drummer during this era. You have heard him drum, probably many times, whether you know it or not, and you’ve definitely heard his most famous song. His partial discography on Wikipedia is the longest list of recordings by a single person that I’ve ever seen. 

The only issue I had with this book is the clumsy writing, writing which includes sentences such as this:

“She didn't know any of the material, but volunteered to sing ‘Let It Be,’ which the band barely knew but pulled off as she felt the warmth of Jim's solid backbeat wrap around her like a gentle hand as soon as the band struck up behind her.” (p. 109)

and this:

“Like the shaman, Jim knew the drums were a beacon to guide him home. He wanted to do a band.” (p. 213)

The writing is so clunky throughout that my first thought was to compare it to a high school research paper; however, by the end it started to feel like the author was just trying to write in the same way that he would speak. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he had dictated this book into a recording app and then typed it up word-for-word. If you can make peace with that (I did but it took a long time), then you’ll really enjoy this chronicle of a forgotten titan of rock ‘n’ roll. 

Good writing let down by a hackneyed premise and poor execution