Josh Brolin, From Under the Truck, Harper Collins, 240 pages, Paperback $26, Audiobook $22
Josh Brolin is an actor’s actor, a man of notable skills and presence. Recently, we saw him in Oliver Stone’s W. in which he pulled off the formidable feat of transforming himself into a more or less sympathetic and intelligent version of George W. Bush and then there was his sinister glamour-laden policeman in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, the 2014 film of Thomas Pynchon’s novel with Joaquin Phoenix. Now he has put together a weird and wonderful collection of memoirs which he reads himself on the Audible version and which really deserves to be listened to in the author’s voice given the bravura nature of the arrangement and the trickiness of the mirror which is capturing and confining the self-delineation.
To begin with it is not a celebrity memoir even though it contains a thousand shaded glimpses of the famous. You can, for instance, miss completely who is being referred to when his stepmother disputes his right to a much desired glass of red wine. But isn’t he an alcoholic she asks. Look, he just wants a glass of red wine. The only clue to who and what she is apart from a quasi-maternal naysayer is that she’s referred to in passing and without detail as a singer and her name is Barbra. It’s blindingly obvious once you see it but for much of this brilliant and mesmerising book you’re left blind.
On the other hand when you’re listening to it spectral and special presences insinuate themselves. We recognise this figure before he’s named by the sound of his voice which has an uncanny saturation that brings the great actor before you in a way that’s so subtle it’s a bit miraculous.
“While listening to the stories of Barry Corbin at the bar tonight, I saw a gnarled hand land on Barry’s left shoulder. A moment of excitement from Barry, then a few pleasantries exchanged and never a glance at me, until I decided to interject: “Hello. I’m Josh.” The face belonging to the gnarled hand looked at me without any expression. “Okay …” “I’m playing Moss.” “Moss. Llewellyn Moss?” “Yessir.” He stared at me for a long time, studying me. “Josh Brolin?”
“Yessir.” “Well, I’ll be damned.” “Yessir.” He looked at me a while longer then started speaking with Barry again about nothing in particular, something about his hair.