[rating=3.00]
The wild fluctuations of Storm Large come at the reader fast and heavy while she describes her life and growing up in not the most normal of circumstances. She is a sentence or sometimes a mere word or syllable away from proclaiming something The! Best! Thing! Ever! before wanting to destroy whatever it was. Grand statements don’t always end up as amazing events, but Storm has an obvious flair for the dramatic that is on display instantly.
By page seven she has already broached the death of her mother, her current “fucking like we just got out of prison” relationship, her marathon childhood masturbation sessions and her possible bipolar disorder. Bombardier seems to be a proper term to describe Storm as she continues this Rolling Thunder assault on the reader throughout.
Crazy Enough: A Memoir focuses on: growing up, family life, hard drugs, sex of all kinds, relationships, running naked in public while on acid and finally punk rock revelations. All of this is discussed while being weaved in and around the central theme of book; the ongoing raw relationship Storm had with her troubled mother. Their story is deep, complex, twisted and hurtful but all of it is told with gut slicing honesty.
Storm’s story telling tone is that of a chatty extrovert that you might meet sitting in a lower east side dive bar while waiting for your friends to arrive. You are instantly overwhelmed by her chaotic style but by the end of the night she has infiltrated herself into your group and everyone is laughing while doing shots. The next morning you don’t quite remember how she ended up back at your place, yet you can’t help to smirk.
Flashes of honesty and colorful descriptions come and go but the writing is quick and pointed, brutally honest and yet breezy. Storm Large’s life story isn’t explosively affirming or exposing, but she doesn’t seem to be set out to accomplish that with Crazy Enough. Storm just wants to truthfully (and a touch dramatically) tell her story and is glad to have you along for the reading ride.
