Double Dream

I just read Room To Dream, which I have to assume is the best David Lynch biography out there.  I've blogged a fair amount about Lynch--how he's a true artist (and a good one, as well), and how it's sort of a miracle that someone so defiantly unconventional has had such a major career--but maybe the most fascinating thing about this book is the format.

It should be called an auto/biography.  The book, almost 600 pages, has alternating chapters.  First there's a chapter by Krisine McKenna, who tells Lynch story in chronological order.  She's clearly done her research, and talked to people from all parts of Lynch's life--collaborators as well as friends and lovers (and Lynch has been married four times, so there's a lot going on there).  If you just read her chapters, you'd have an excellent biography.

But after each chapter comes a Lynch chapter--it's not clear if he wrote them or dictated them--where he discusses what happened during the years just described.  He adds interesting perspective (not always agreeing with McKenna, though part of her research was talking to Lynch), and also comes across as the Gee Whiz sort of guy he's alleged to be, describing most colleagues as "solid gold," "beyond the beyond" and so on.

I was going to say the book is unique that way, except I recall No Laughing Matter by Joseph Heller and Speed Vogel.  It's about Heller's struggle with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which had him mostly paralyzed.  Heller hung out with guys like Mario Puzo and Mel Brooks, but it was less-known pal Vogel who got to write the tale, with Heller adding his point of view in alternating chapters.