A review by prosewhore
Courtney Love: The Real Story by Poppy Z. Brite
4.0
This is a book that could so easily be read from cover to cover in one sitting. Of course you could say that I am biased if you know about my undying love for Courtney, but even if you aren't a die hard fan I think you could find something you'd like in her story.
From her early beginnings with parents who clearly had no idea how to care for a child nor how to love her, to her stays in numerous friend's houses and later on her injust placements in state facilities for the criminally inclined youth, to her stripping in East Asia when she wasn't even of legal age, all the way to her rise to fame and the difficulties media further brought to her life and that of her child and husband and the witch hunt that began after his suicide.. She has gone through so much shit and yet somehow pulled through to the other side of the tunnel. I knew much of her story already but some of the details were lost on me and I kept thinking as I read "gosh it can't get any worse can it?" knowing full well that it sadly did.
Yes I adore Courtney, not just because she made it but also for her raw honesty. She always refused to compromise on who she was for anyone. God knows she paid a tough price for it but she never ceased to be who she was, fragile and hurt yet strong and angry as hell, always screaming like a banshee, often politically incorrect and always here to smash the patriarchy.
Courtney Love is before anything else resilience personified, and I wish this book had been written later on because she has kicked her demon's arses since then and seem to have become even stronger if that's possible, but this record of her life from her birth to the release of the Larry Flint film -in which she played wonderfully the role of Althea, Larry's wife- already gives us so much information and a real sense of who she is and where she came from. It also fills the holes of her published diary entries, which were numerous.
Poppy Z Brite really wrote an articulate, in depth and generally great biography, with the help of the celebrity's friends and a few documents and letters she had access to as a friend of Courtney herself, I expect it's pretty accurate and in no instances does the author try to sugar coat anything nor to vilify her subject -which is much appreciated-.
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From her early beginnings with parents who clearly had no idea how to care for a child nor how to love her, to her stays in numerous friend's houses and later on her injust placements in state facilities for the criminally inclined youth, to her stripping in East Asia when she wasn't even of legal age, all the way to her rise to fame and the difficulties media further brought to her life and that of her child and husband and the witch hunt that began after his suicide.. She has gone through so much shit and yet somehow pulled through to the other side of the tunnel. I knew much of her story already but some of the details were lost on me and I kept thinking as I read "gosh it can't get any worse can it?" knowing full well that it sadly did.
Yes I adore Courtney, not just because she made it but also for her raw honesty. She always refused to compromise on who she was for anyone. God knows she paid a tough price for it but she never ceased to be who she was, fragile and hurt yet strong and angry as hell, always screaming like a banshee, often politically incorrect and always here to smash the patriarchy.
Courtney Love is before anything else resilience personified, and I wish this book had been written later on because she has kicked her demon's arses since then and seem to have become even stronger if that's possible, but this record of her life from her birth to the release of the Larry Flint film -in which she played wonderfully the role of Althea, Larry's wife- already gives us so much information and a real sense of who she is and where she came from. It also fills the holes of her published diary entries, which were numerous.
Poppy Z Brite really wrote an articulate, in depth and generally great biography, with the help of the celebrity's friends and a few documents and letters she had access to as a friend of Courtney herself, I expect it's pretty accurate and in no instances does the author try to sugar coat anything nor to vilify her subject -which is much appreciated-.
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