Word: woodwarding
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...ALSO a devastating book. Woodward has assembled a ghastly array of anecdotes that could keep a number of kids scared out of their wits about drugs for life. The escalating pressures of stardom, and the unceasing demands of fans and industry moguls to be continually funny, indeed funnier than the last time out, made Belushi a sick wreck. And in the toxic environment of the New York-Los Angeles axis, there was little, apparently, that family or friends could do to make this wreck stop from disintegrating...
What started as a pleasant diversion when he was a young Chicago comedian turned into a hundreds-of-dollars-a-day habit when he was a big star in the late 1970s. Belushi did "blow" (cocaine) practically daily, and, as Woodward tells it, would go on all-night binges during which he would bounce from party to party be it West or Last Coast on a perpetual high. The high extended to the set of whatever movie he was filming--Animal House, The Blues Brothers, and Continental Divide, to name three--where he was combative, uncooperative, and finally wildly talented...
...Woodward is not interested in pronouncing judgment on Belushi for any of this. Instead, he recounts incident after incident, gory detail after party detail slowing up to excruciating exactness as he reaches Belushi's death in 1982. The tackle works, as we are forced into the role played by Beluchi's closes friends--that of agonized onlooker, unable to stop his self-destruction, loathful of his lifestyle yet curious and at times even fascinated...
Because of his terse narrative style. Woodward has dome difficulty conveying what he thinks went wrong. Anecdotes suffice for him, and by and large this is enough. He quoted Belushi telling one of his doctors early on why he couldn't stop using the drugs...
Later on In the book, however, as Woodward starts detailing the efforts of Belushi's wife and friends to get him to stop his binges, the lack of analysis by the author detracts from the power of the story. Woodward wants to show why they were unable to stop the downward spiral, but he leaves us wondering instead if it was lack of will on Belushi's part, on his friends' part, or simply the hyper-intensive. Hollywood scene that...