Bourdain: the Definitive Oral Biography

 

I remember reading "Kitchen Confidential" when it first came out and being blown away by Bourdain's depiction of what it was really like in the kitchens of high-end restaurants. His writing style was so engaging: clever and witty and sarcastically funny. I didn't watch all of his TV shows, off and on over the years, if I caught it, great, but I didn't go out of my way to see them. They were always interesting and fun, though, and I learned a lot.

Like everyone else I was stunned when I heard that he'd killed himself in 2018. It seemed completely unlike him, but of course it's not like I really knew him. This book is told by the people who did really know him. He had his ups and downs, he was an addict who was always chasing the next big high. It's a damn shame he left us when he did, I could tell he had a lot of people in his life who loved him and wanted to help him. It was an interesting tale, like the man himself, with an all too sudden and abrupt ending.