HIGH
ON ARRIVAL, by Mackenzie Phillips. 292 pages, illustrated. Simon and
Schuster.
“High
on Arrival” is a beautifully written memoir about – nothing,
really.
It
came out in 2009, and before starting this review I had to check to
see if she's still sober. Apparently yes.
If
about anything, “High on Arrival” is about her father, John, who
was dead when this was published and who never has a voice in the
book, only an overwhelming presence.
“We
were kids of privilege who could have anything we desired except what
we really wanted – a connection with our parents,” she writes.
Sad
and not really true. Mackenzie Phillips didn't really want to be
brutally raped when she was a child, no doubt. She now thinks she did
not want to be a drug addict most of her life. She never wanted her
dear cousin to be murdered with a “hot shot” overdose.
She
and her father are poor candidates as models for those libertarians
who think the war on drugs has been a failure and would prefer to
just legalize the stuff. Thanks to their money, fame and influence,
the Phillipses were practically living a drug-legal world.
They
could get as much of what they wanted as they wanted, with only
slight concern about the authorities. Even when, after many years,
they did encounter the law, they wriggled free with minor
inconvenience.
Actions
that get ordinary people decades in prison got them, at worst, a
short time in rehab.
“You
always take others down with you,” Mackenzie Phillips says. The key
word is down. Hers was a miserable life.
She
claims to have done cocaine around the clock for long periods. It
seems almost impossible that she could have done so much, but perhaps
so.
In
any event, she claimed to have cleaned up for over a decade. Then she
started again, this time with pain pills.
At
the time of writing “High on Arrival,” she was 50 and, she says,
clean again.
At
least she didn't find Jesus.
This is a book review?
ReplyDeleteWas the book any good? Worth reading?
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to discern from "a beautifully written memoir about – nothing". The "beautifully written" part makes me consider reading it, the "nothing" part confuses me.
At least she didn't find Jesus. Because it would've been oh-so-much better to keep being a drug addict if that were the only alternative?
Lastly, libertarians don't claim that drug legalization would lead to utopia or that there wouldn't continue to be many heart-breaking stories. Only that it would be better than the current situation with millions of people in prison.
I seldom read celeb autobiographies, choose this one only because I am such a fan of the Mamas and the Papas and John Phillips' songwriting.
ReplyDeleteI knew, beforehand, about the sensational incest story.
Nothing there, though. Another one of several stylish but empty junkie bios I have read. Maybe junkies just are not interesting?
I find the libertarian position puzzling. Like arguing against requiring safer car designs. I choose the example carefully. On a libertarian do-no-harm theory, wouldn't legalized pot logically also require surrender of a driver license?
But in all the talk I've ever heard about that, I have seen that suggestion only once, and then not from a libertarian.