MEDIA: Book Review –
June 4, 2020 – But let me put it this way: If Brown wrote the list of ingredients on the label of a can of baked beans, his lean and powerful prose would still make that list beautiful and demand you take notice. Thankfully Brown (who teaches writing at Cal State San Bernadino) sticks to literature, and in his third – and perhaps strongest – memoir, “Apology to the Young Addict,” he gives the reader a ringside seat as he not only serves up the wreckage of his former alcoholic/addict past, but also reveals how he has come out the other side – brutally honest, introspective, and all the wiser.
“Apology to the Young Addict” is a memoir told in connecting chapters, where Brown’s “characters” are the down-and-out real people in his life – a pair of geriatric drug addict neighbors and the rising and falling stars in Alcoholics Anonymous, and Brown himself as he navigates his own metamorphosis of recovery. Friends and family affected by his addiction are brought sympathetically to the page. Unflinching and self-reflective, Brown exposes the devastation that his addiction has wrought by chronicling the decline of those around him while ultimately allowing the reader to truly see him for who he is now—a man taking responsibility for his actions and making amends for his wrongs. Consider this memoir as the brilliant conclusion of Brown’s journey, which started in “The Los Angeles Diaries,” yet it stands alone as a defining homage to the human spirit and survival – an excellent heartfelt and dark memoir from a writer at the top of his game.
