This River

Praise for This River <br> This River pulls no punches--art shouldn't and Brown doesn't. The good, the bad, the ugly are all there in a lucid, uncluttered, muscular prose studded with honesty, willpower, and courage. Brown's is a story of a man who, against overwhelming odds, not only came back from the abyss, but triumphed. --Duff Brenna, author of The Book of Mamie, recipient of the AWP Award for Best Novel <br> This follow-up to his first memoir, The Los Angeles Diaries, highlights Brown's literary prowess . . . This is dark, but also loving and literary. -- Library Journal <br> Beautifully written, this is clear-eyed truth-telling by a man coming to terms with the best and worst in himself and others. -- Booklist <br> What is fascinating to watch is not a spectacle of decline--he writes of addiction to alcohol, heroin, meth, prescription drugs and antidepressants--but his geologic sculpting, this wearing away of a person, memories and all, down to some pure and simple core. This River continues where Brown's first memoir, The Los Angeles Diaries, left off. It's molten stuff, the story of his efforts to control his river of rage. -- Los Angeles Times <br> A beautifully crafted and intensely moving book. Without artifice or pretension--without false moves of any sort--James Brown goes after the biggest literary game: death, love, children, degeneration, hopelessness, hope. I read this book straight through, in one spellbound sitting, and I will read it again in a week or two. It is so good. --Tim O'Brien, National Book Award winning-author of Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried <br> James Brown is a truth teller and here again he does not disappoint. His writing as always is lucid and unflinching. In laying bare his own soul, he makes of his work an act against loneliness, shot through with a sad wisdom. --Kem Nunn, author of the L.A. Times Book Award winner Tijuana Straits and of the National Book Awardo