Customer Reviews:
 Free falling November 18, 2008
How many times have you thought you were in control of your thoughts, words and actions, but when you look back, you wonder, who was that? Or, why was that? The author takes an honest, sobering look at his past and comes up with insightful answers to those questions. This book does what all good books do: it lets you know more about the writer, and it makes you think about your own life in ways you haven't before.
Well written and intriguing November 13, 2008
I had read a lot of reviews before I got this novel, and I must say that the book is very well written, and although I have little sympathy for someone who does drugs, it pulled me along. The lessons he brings in the book are very poignant.
Carr doesn't look for pity in this book -- instead, he lays out his entire sordid history as far as he can remember -- and what he can piece together from other people and records. A good read.
Brilliant and moving November 13, 2008
If you are at all interested in recovery, your own, someone else's or are just looking for an honest story, this is it. Carr is deeply honest in examining his life, the good the bad and the really ugly - everything. He holds nothing back, nor does he reconstruct his history to make himself look better. He tells his life story in flashbacks, interviews and clippings, constructing a whole narrative out of a patchwork of sources. Unlike another book about recovery, this is real. How addiction takes hold and spirals, and how small everyday things can overcome it. I really hate being trite, but this book really is about the 'triumph of the human spirit'.
 David Carr is brave November 12, 2008
In a world willing to forgive it's celebrities anything, this kind of memoir is not what most journalists would be willing to write about themselves. Journalists are judged under a harsher light, and forgiven far less often than actors who never really had our trust to begin with.
David's walk through his own disaster is remarkably brave. He allows himself to be the story and in doing so risks so much. It is that risk that adds so much value to his tale.
Good Luck. The road doesn't end with the book.
The facts and fiction of memory November 10, 2008
THE NIGHT OF THE GUN is a unique look at drug abuse and memory. NY Times reporter, David Carr, literally reports on his life as a drug user. His memory of his days abusing drugs is hazy. He remembers many parts of his life as a drug addict differently than how the events actually happened.
It is unique in a memoir for a writer to question his own memories. I am fascinated by the idea of memory and the way in which different people remember the same event. Even those who do not abuse substances often remember events incorrectly. People unconsciously change the past to suit their present. It's rare for a non-fiction writer to acknowledge the inherent faults in human memory.
As simple a tale of substance abuse, this autobiography does not stand out from the thousands of other books written about addiction. However, this book definitely stands out that it examines how humans remember their pasts.
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