Get a Shot of Rhythm and Blues
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Subtitled 'The Arthur Alexander Story', I was looking forward to reading this book immensely. Unfortunately it turned out to be rather disappointing. What made it particularly frustrating was the fact that it clearly had the potential to be an excellent read, but suffered from one unusual and, in this case, disastrous flaw. All the elements you would expect from a good biography were present; it was well written, thoroughly researched and contexts explained. Indeed Richard Younger went to great pains to present as balanced a view as possible. Where doubts existed he was always willing to publish alternative viewpoints side by side. Certainly there could be no doubting the quality of his material. Alexander's life was rich in tragedy, so much so that there was probably enough material for a dozen biographies. He did drugs, drank like a fish, womanised extensively and went within a whisker of serving a prison sentence. Indeed it was even suggested that he might have been involved in a murder. Despite such a potentially rich plot, the book barely scraped the surface of Arthur's intrigues as the author struggled to find sufficient material to fill its pages. Every time a new character appeared in the plot, no matter how minor, they were invariably given a sub-biography of their own which left me with the distinct impression that Younger was trying to pad the tale out. These little cameos occurred far too frequently in the meagre one hundred and ninety pages of the storyline resulting in a lack of continuity. For the first seventy pages I couldn't sustain any interest at all because of the continuous breaks, thankfully these became less and less as the author eventually found his groove. Once the book had settled down I enjoyed it much more, but by that time my opinion had already been tainted. The main flaw in this book is that not enough material had been unearthed to fill it and Younger tries to disguise the fact with too many digressions. He would have done far better to include more sordid details about the seedier side of Alexander's life, his womanising, his drug abuse and his drinking and drop the meaningless details about the minor characters. This would have made for a far better narrative. |
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Why Not visit the Authors other Website, 'The Alternative Blackpool Website' at http://www.localdial.com/users/jsyedu133/bpool This Site Last Updated 18/05/05
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