This was Becoming Superman by J Michael (Joe) Straczinski and it was a Christmas gift from Son No 1. My suspicion that he bought it because he wanted to read it himself was confirmed recently when I told him I was reading it and he said 'I must borrow it from you sometime'. That's OK, it's not the first time one of us has bought the other a book with the idea of borrowing it later - shared interests and all that.
Joe Straczinski has had a long and successful career as a writer of film, tv, and comic books/graphic novels, but we know him mainly as the creator, writer, showrunner and general overlord of Babylon 5, a science fiction tv series that aired in the mid-1990s. Everyone in our house was a big fan. Son No 1 and I even went to a huge B5 convention in Blackpool in 1996 which featured most of the cast and many of the production staff. Organisationally it was a total and utter shambles, but we still had a good time.
I won't lie, this book is not an easy read. JMS was brought up, if you can apply the term, in a dysfunctional family headed by a violent, controlling and abusive alcoholic who regularly beat his wife (a former teenage prostitute) almost to death, and reduced her to a state where she was too scared to either leave him, or protest when he used his fists/feet/belt on their children. I found the early stages so distressing to read that I had to ration myself to one, or sometimes, two chapters a day to get through it.
I am amazed that JMS survived his childhood*, and even more that from such horrible beginnings he forged such a successful career.
*physically at least. Emotionally it has to be said that he comes across as a fairly damaged individual unable to make, indeed terrified of making, close personal relationships.
One for the fans or the psychologists amongst us, rather than the general reader, I feel.
That sounds like a very honest book, but not one I could cope with.
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