The Los Angeles Diaries

Some read The Los Angeles Diaries for its childs eye POV of life with a crazy, murderous mother and a neglectful, cheating dad. Others find solace in the small victories author James Brown accrues of surviving from day to day in present-day LA trying to sell a screenplay to one of the big studios while battling a lifelong drinking and drug habit. I like these aspects of the story but best of all to me are the glimpses we get of Barry Brown, James older brother, a promising actor in the so-called New American Cinema of the 1970s, one who died too young, shooting himself in the head in a dump in Echo Parkone of the early members of the 27 Club of stars maudit.

The mother was a real piece of work and, because she was so distant from her sons, we never understand her motivations thoroughly, but she was perhaps good at distancing herself from reality.,,, she managed to fool her husband, while selling off all of their rental properties secretly in order to pay off some bad loans she had taken out for no real reason. Then the roof fell in and, perhaps as a distraction, she sneaked off to San Francisco, bringing 5 year old James with her, and set fire to an apartment building. When two elderly ladies died in the conflagration, the mother was imprisoned, and the father began an affair with the beautiful Latina babysitter she had once hired to look after her kids.

The book goes back in forth in time between the little boy, James, and the adult screenwriter trying to battle multiple addictions and make peace with the past. The present is startling enough; in one memorable scene an assistant has Brown sit on his ass for hours waiting to pitch movie ideas to a studio executive until finally, the windows of the luxe suite start to shatter as if from Browns pent up fury at being kept waiting; but its actually a sniper, a fired tram driver gone postal. The executive finally opens his door and Brown says, Im Jim Brown, Im here for a meeting with you.

In another chapter he tries to save his marriage by buying his wife a cut baby pig they call Daisy. What happens to Daisy and to the marriage are horrible facts of human enslavement to drugs, but if ever you want to save your marriage dont buy a pet; like my old dad used to inveigh, when something goes wrong, its always the animals that pay.

Written as an adult looking back at his childhood and his development in a totally dysfunctional violent household. A life devoid of role models or moral compass, this being found his way to be a valuable adult. The book ends without describing Jamess continuing contributions and support generously extended to others. It was an emotional read, but a must for us to gain insight into the nightmares of our nations children hidden behind walls.

Grim. A style that is raw in-your-face, this is the way it is, warts and all, etc… And a good insight into that family, and for anyone wanting a deeper dive into who actor Barry Brown really was.

I remember, as a kid, a teacher having us write our favorite movie star on a piece of paper, and her reading the selections aloud. “Barry Brown” arose with frequency, he was popular back in the day. That being around 1970’ish or so.

The book serves insights this broken family and also could be a cautionary tale about addiction. But, it was a grim read, overall, and I felt a bit empty afterwards.

Brown’s writing is concise and clear.
His style could be considered minimalistic, in that most of the stories I’ve read don’t contain an excess of descriptors, but none the less make me as a reader feel as though I can tell stories about what it’s like to suffer from alcohol abuse and drug addiction. And his perspective is such that Brown has experienced a lot of sad things, but never feels sorry for himself. Every story is coming to realize that he needs to grow. It’s a book that’ll make you sympathize with addicts and have faith in the process to beating drug addiction.

Jim Brown is one of the great but under-known writers of our time. The idea that novels like Fifty Shades of Grey and similar works garner so much attention while stuff like The Los Angeles Diaries and Brown’s fiction goes largely unnoticed by larger says something bad about our society.

This work is incredibly well written, touching, funny, tragic, and stays with you for a long time after you read it. It’s also utterly lacking in pretension.

If you want a good reading experience that’s entertaining and human, then buy this book. You’ll be glad you did.

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