The Book of Drugs

October 3, 2011
This memoir by singer-songwriter and former Soul Coughing front man Doughty is hardly your typical rock star memoir. Doughty is brutally honest about life as an addict, as he describes his transition from a cigarette smoker and pothead to a junkie (who takes two hours to walk to the ATM machine) and a drunk who had to sip the first drink of the day while it sat on the bar because his hands shook so much. Bringing the writing skill that he has crafted to his underground poetry, magazine articles, and songs, Doughty conveys his message with both despair and humor. For instance, reading about the slew of women he slept with while he was wasted, like the girl with the “boyish seventeen-year-old’s body and a middle-aged senator’s jowls,” one can’t help cringing and laughing at the same time. Clean since May 5, 2000, Doughty’s revelations about going to 12-step meeting and his “spiritual awakening” are just as forthright as his reminiscences about being a junkie and a drunk, though these memories and thoughts are recounted much more vividly. Along the way, Doughty discusses his bitter relationship with his band mates and the usual creative and personal problems common in rock bands, which are only made worse by the paranoia and self-hate brought on by substance abuse. While fans of Doughty will be disappointed that he doesn’t reveal more about the genesis of his songwriting, this is a compelling look at one man’s struggle to come to terms with the much-discussed connection between addiction and art.

December 1, 2011
Former Soul Coughing singer Doughty's memoir about sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and the spiritual benefits of world travel. The author half-seriously calls his book "just another drug narrative," and it's true. There's nothing about Doughty's longtime love for pot, coke, heroin and Ecstasy that hasn't already been superseded by hundreds of other rock-star druggies who eventually replaced compulsive drug use with some form of equally compulsive religious behavior. What makes this story tolerable is not his voracious appetite for drugs and groupie sex but rather the mundane facts of his life as a mid-level rock star. Born the privileged son of a West Point–educated military historian, Doughty grew up knowing only a whitewashed suburban existence. He moved to New York City in the early 1990s to become an East Village creative type, putting together what seemed like just another acoustic act playing the NYC club circuit. But within a year of its inception, Soul Coughing got snapped up in the post-Nirvana major-label signing frenzy. The band consisted of Doughty on guitar and vocals and three jazzbo sidemen whose main function seemed to be busting Doughty's chops for his lack of musical ability. After readers get to know his insufferable band mates, the author's addiction becomes more understandable. Yet there's also something desperately exhibitionist about Doughty's willingness to recount in brutally frank detail even the most miserable experiences with drugs, groupies, itinerant girlfriends and prostitutes. More interesting than the sex and drugs, however, are the poisonous band dynamics that eventually destroyed Soul Coughing. Though Doughty's inevitable turn to rehab spiritualism is neither interesting nor inspiring, the stories of his exotic world travel—trips to Cambodia and Ethiopia, for instance—offer a few memorable culture-clash moments. Another mostly enjoyable but unremarkable excess-leads-to-the-palace-of-wisdom drug memoir.

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December 1, 2011

Doughty, the former lead singer of Soul Coughing and now a solo act, writes his soul-baring memoir. After describing his childhood in painfully honest yet balanced terms, he chronicles his career through the lens of a creative, self-deprecating, desperate musician plagued by feelings of inadequacy. He starts with his gig as the doorman of New York's Knitting Factory and the genesis of Soul Coughing. In direct, bald vignettes, Doughty discusses his bandmates, who melded musically but had a dysfunctional relationship throughout their seven-year career; girlfriends; a trip to Cambodia; and, above all, his musical life as experienced through the opaque veil of drugs--first weed then heroin, ecstasy, alcohol, and a few lesser addictions. In the last quarter of the book, Doughty tells of his struggle to achieve normalcy, first with antidepressants for bipolar disorder and then his day-by-day triumphs over drug addiction through sheer willpower and his 12-step colleagues. VERDICT Much more than a musician's autobiography, this is a tale about the resurgence of the human spirit; Doughty captures a little bit of all of us in his journey. Recommended.--Dave Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle

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