Upper Cut

[Joseph]

the author is a friend of a friend so i decided to pick up this book on amazon (super cool cover, btw). it's a alcohol drug memoir about a hollywood hairdresser. anyone here read it? whatdya think?

[Sheana]

I posted this review:
Carrie White's debut book Upper Cut is a memoir, but not just any memoir: it's chalk full of celebrities she worked with during her sudden rise to success as a hairdresser coupled with a gradual dependence upon alcohol and drugs that unravels everything she has built: an A list clientele, a family and an unlimited future. The result is a blend of the celebrity memoir with the popularly growing recovery memoir. A page-turner, White delivers her story with sparse, conversational prose as if you were sitting at her chair, while she works her magic on your hair, only she does this on the page.

Beginning with the childhood memory of her father walking out of the room and never returning, White delivers the successive tragedies of her neglected and abused life growing up in Pacoima with an alcoholic mother. The author's voice remains objective, yet still intimate, which has the effect of allowing the reader to grow up in her shoes as opposed to through the author's reflection of pathos for the obvious consequences her circumstances have on her psyche. Like White herself, we don't have the luxury of reflecting upon how dysfunctional her upbringing is: we just move on to the next thing White has to do in order to survive. She is a chameleon, cleverly fitting in to whatever environment she finds herself, including drugs and alcohol when she arrives at Hollywood High School.

From high school, White dives into the world of hairdressing, a field dominated by men. We watch her drive for success keep her from being present for her own children. Again, the consequences are not spelled out until the children themselves are old enough to begin articulating their disappointment. The reader sees the train wreck, but the character does not, which is the case in life, and allows the reader to sympathize with a little girl who becomes the alcoholic mother from whom she disconnected. But there's hope, throughout the book, there are angels that enter White's life, spiriting her through the next chapter until she eventually finds grace (which is ironically her mother's name) as White points out is defined as "an unmerited divine assistance."

With the "writer" out of the way, the character gets to tell the story, a feat difficult enough in fiction, but quite an accomplishment with a story as personal as a memoir.