Reseñas
This book brings back that moment as if I was watching a high-def movie. The conversations contained herein are nothing short of historic, not just because of the subject, but because of what that subject was saying. John loved to talk. Here he opines on topics as mundane as food to deeply held beliefs about nuclear war, politics and religion. I vividly remember buying the December 1980 issue of Playboy and reading the abridged version of what was to become this book. The Playboy issue was published and delivered BEFORE John was killed. I still have that issue.
One does not need to be a fan of The Beatles or John Lennon for that matter, to enjoy this book. One needs to be curious about history, music and wants to get inside of won't of the true original minds of the 20th century. You may not agree with John's opinions and comments, but I can guarantee you you will find it hard-pressed to put this book down once you start it.
Jarvis had spent decades in solitary confinement in the so-called Adjustment Center.
He had had a difficult childhood. He and his sister lived with their mother. He was scared of his mother who whipped him and took drugs.
He wrote a letter to her after her death, asking for her forgiveness, but what he needed was an apology from her, which he would never get.
At the age of 5, Jarvis and his sisters were taken to Child Protective Services where they were separated.
In one foster home, he was treated lovingly and taught to pray. But subsequent foster parents beat him up and he was sent to a Youth Detention Centre, where he was burnt and beaten and forced to fight with other children.
The prison system was “another hell”.
Jarvis’ lawyer, Melody, had had a difficult childhood herself, but studying Buddhism helped her heal.
Melody taught Jarvis to meditate, which helped him find moments of peace.
She gave him a pamphlet offering free writings by the lama Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche whom he then wrote to telling of his situation.
He read a book that asked the reader to ask themselves two questions every night. “If I die tonight in my sleep --- What have I done with my life? Have I been of benefit or have I caused harm?”
He knew he’d benefited no one and had caused immeasurable harm.
Chagdud Tulku told Jarvis his situation was a gift. He said he could use his circumstances for his betterment and to benefit others.
He told him meditation allows one to gain insight into our own mind and its projections.
Jarvis should meditate at least twice a day even when it was difficult. He should allow himself to feel doubt, confusion, anger, and fear.
The lawyers said his trial had ben a travesty and he’d win an appeal. But he never did.
Lisa Leghorn was an assistant and interpreter to Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche,
Lisa came to San Quentin to visit Jarvis.
At first Jarvis couldn’t even meditate for five minutes but eventually he could sit for two hours or more.
Lisa advised him “The only way out is through.”
He saw his mother being beaten mercilessly by his father. He retrieved these memories while meditating.
As a little boy himself, Jarvis took care of, and loved, his little brother, Carl. But one morning he found Carl dead in his crib.
Lisa and Chagdud Tulku were drawing Jarvis deeper into Buddhism.
Meditation had become the centre of his life.
Lisa taught him basic yoga postures and mantras.
He integrated them into his daily practice. When he preceded meditation with prostrations and repeated mantras, time and space disappeared. He disappeared.
Rinpoche comes to visit Jarvis. He is “a man with long silver hair in a topknot and a silver band, wearing scarlet robes and a crimson silk shirt”.
Jarvis is in “the hole”, i.e. solitary confinement, so he’s not permitted to sit together with Rinpoche.
Rinpoche knows about the hole. Some Tibetan prisoners were forced to dig holes in the ground and climb in. The hole was their prison, and they lived in it. When they died, they were buried in it.
But Chagdud Tulku was fortunate and escaped. He said “We survived by study, prayer, and meditation.”
Chagdud says “It is your karma to be here. You are fortunate to be in a place where you can know humanity’s suffering and learn to see the perfection of all beings and yourself. Learn to see their perfection.”
Rinpoche reminds Jarvis to meditate every day.
“Practice and open your heart, and your mind will follow.”
Rinpoche came to San Quentin to perform an empowerment ceremony. By taking certain vows Jarvis would formally become a Buddhist.
But Jarvis thought “A Buddhist is supposed to end suffering, but what about the suffering I caused?”
When the guards came to take Jarvis to his meeting with Rinpoche, Jarvis thought they were taking him to his execution.
Later, he realized he HAD walked to his death, the death of the person he’d been.
Chagdud Tulku bestowed on Jarvis the protection of a benevolent, all-loving manifestation of the Buddha – Red Tara, the mother of liberation.
Jarvis realized that if he had not been charged with the murder, his life would not have changed – he would still have been violent.
So that was why San Quentin was a gift.
Without the sentence he would have been in a body bag, or put someone in one.
He never would have meditated or have learnt about Buddhism, would never have met Rinpoche or Melody.
“The death sentence that could kill him had given him life.”
His short story “Scars” was published and his poem won an award. Also “Scars” was accepted for an anthology comprising the work of African American writers.
Many read Jarvis’ book “Finding Freedom”. His San Quentin mailing address was published on the flyleaf and many wrote to him.
He replied to every letter.
Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun, was presented with his book and found it profound. They began communicating.
Pema visited him and “perceived his thoughtfulness and cheerfulness” and found him funny.
She visited him whenever she was in the area and instructed him.
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche has taught her that people shouldn’t try to transcend whatever they struggled with because pain, sadness and despair are useful – people have to experience the bad feelings in order to heal.
Jarvis had used meditation to transcend the pain he’d always had but now Pema challenged him to go back to the worst memories and intentionally meditate on them.
The goal is not to transcend the past but be there fully, then it will lose its bility to harm you or control you.
Pema helped Jarvis to process the death of his little brother, Carl.
It is now Jarvis’ karma to help people.
Pema is a famous Buddhist writer and I’ve read and loved several of her books. She helped Jarvis find out what to do with the rest of his life.
He woke at between four and five each morning and did prostrations and yoga, then meditation. Many Buddhists use malas, small strings of wooden prayer beads, when they meditate.
Jarvis wasn’t allowed to have an actual mala but he made his own by poking holes in aspirin tablets and stringing them onto a thread he’d pulled from a sock.
In the yard he approached and communicated with inmates who seemed isolated or troubled.
He had deepening connections with prisoners and friends –his life was full and rich. But in 2002 he was told that his teacher Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche had died.
He asked himself what he’d done to help others, since he felt he hadn’t prevented suffering, he’d caused it. But he realied he was asking the wrong question. The right question was “What can I do now?”
This is an inspiring book, wonderfully written and providing much detail about Jarvis’ life and transformation.
As far as I know, Jarvis is still doing time on Death Row. This is a book I would recommend to everyone.
All of this said, there were tears in my eyes at a few different points, which is pretty rare for me when I'm reading. So yes, it could have been much better, but the emotional aspect of the book was absolutely there.
man spends most of his life on death row (for a murder for which he was framed) at San Quentin, uses meditation to deal with past (many serious traumas and guilt) + becomes a Buddhist disciple and helps others in unexpected, significant ways while awaiting appeals/death sentence.
David Sheff is a writer by trade, so this was a well-written story. And a really heartbreaking one. This would be heartbreaking for any reader, but as a parent, this hits especially hard. As difficult as this was to read, it was also very compelling. Drug addiction is a vicious cycle, and as difficult as it is for the user, it's also incredibly brutal to the user's family. David Sheff did a great job of expressing how his son's journey tore him apart, as well as how it affected the rest of his family. You can find quite a bit of media coverage on the Sheff family with a simple Google search, and there was a movie adaptation that was released in 2018, starring Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet. As far as book adaptations, it was one of the better ones that I've viewed lately.
Back then, I could accept the somewhat spacier of John and Yoko's beliefs. I came at their words as a true believer.
Now, as the father of two, much more jaded by life, but still a Beatles and Lennon fan, and still mourning his loss, as well as George's, all these years later, I come at the book still admiring the man, admiring his convictions, his desperate search for peace, both within and without. I love how each deferred to the other, finished each others' sentences and, sometimes, gently disagreed with each other.
Harder to accept is their views on parenthood, but that's always a personal choice.
But, more than anything, what I took away from this interview series this time was, perhaps for the first time, John was human. He said incredibly intelligent things, he said dumbfoundingly stupid things, he said funny things, he said heartbreaking things.
John was, first a foremost, before he was a Beatle, a musician, a father, a husband, a champion of peace, he was a human being, with all the foibles and mistakes built in. Not a God, not someone to worship, hell, maybe not even someone to look up to.
But definitely someone we could learn from.
And I still am saddened that I live in a world without him.
The boy in this book is addicted to meth, but I highly recommend it to anyone who has any kind of addiction or mental illness in the family or knows someone that has addiction or mental illness in the family.
I also recommend it to parents who are divorced or considering getting divorced, even if your kids are not doing drugs. The author talks about the effect joint custody had on their son. He also talks about the effects that having to travel to visit each parent had on their son. His son agrees it was very hard on him to have to leave the other parent for long periods of time. "I was always missing someone" he said. So, read this book, Divorcing Parents!!!
This is the story of a father's struggle with his son's drug addiction. His son Nic, first smokes pot in 6th grade - then we have a blow by tortuous blow of subsequent events and phases in Nic's life. From promising, charismatic student in a bougie family in Marin County with plans to attend Berkeley - to a vagabond, stealing from friends and family, high on Meth among other things. It is heartbreaking to hear the contextual details of the downward spiral - from a precocious doted on toddler to a strung out angry druggie and everything in between. Sheff does an excellent job at narrating the visceral as well as the existential pain of losing control of your beloved child without delving into melodrama. Really impressive.
What I also like about his book is that he doesn't shy away from his own mistakes and faults - He is pissed at himself for how he gave up on his first marriage and the long-distance custody. He does blame himself for contributing to a glorification of the tortured artist stereotype and once even smoking pot with his son in addition to being frank about his own drug use. And he recognizes that he short changed his second wife and kids in addition to himself with years of being addicted to Nic's addiction.
Anyway, I thought this was great. While I appreciated an Epilogue that updated the story - I thought it got a bit preachy and overlong. Artistically, a bit of a miss which saves this from an almost perfect rating. I am going to start soon with my boys with strong anti-drug messaging. What else can you do besides love them? I am so relieved that there is a happy ending for the Sheffs.
One thing that did ruin this book for me was that every piece of media referenced by the son and father are all created, written, directed etc by white men (save for a few references to Joan Didion). WNot surprising since they are themselves white men but it caused me roll my eyes at every mention and utter an “uggggh” so deep it could vibrate my entire body.
Het is een heftig verhaal en het was interessant om het verhaal uit het perspectief van de ouder van de verslaafde te lezen. Het is gebaseerd op zijn dagboek, waardoor het gedetailleerd is geschreven. Dit is soms goed, maar soms te gedetailleerd.
door Mirte:
Het is een goed, interessant, leerrijk, pakkend en gedetailleerd boek dat vlot leest. De inhoud is niet al te luchtig, maar dat weet je voor je eraan begint.
door Jade: (4,5 ster)
Ik heb het boek graag gelezen omdat het een waargebeurd verhaal is en het dus realistisch aanvoelt. Het is super pakkend. Het is een levensverhaal dat verteld wordt, waardoor het boek zeer traag gaat, en soms zoveel heftige scènes na elkaar heeft, waardoor het moeilijk is om het veel en lang na elkaar te lezen.
What fascinating story. I loved the way it was told, honest and true. I felt I got to know the man, and felt his hope, acceptance, dreams, falls, and pains. It's all there. The ending was unexpected.
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For parents of children who are not addicts, you will never know the grief, pain, loss, desperation, angst, guilt, anger, betrayal, and unimaginable fear we with addict children go through. I envy you.
Beautiful Boy is a raw story of love and misery that one man goes through with his addict son. Sheff’s authentic introspection says it all: “I became addicted to my child’s addiction.” We parents of addicts become preoccupied, at the expense of other responsibilities, marriage, other children, work, friends, church. We justify. We beg. We make deals. We compromise, with them, and with our selves. And we never stop loving them.
This is not a read for the weak. This is an in the trenches look at what it feels like to go through the ups and downs of life with an addict. This is not pretty. But this is necessary to know. Addiction is a disease of the brain that only the addict can choose to control. None of the platitudes work: They can just stop. It’s a choice. No one is making them take the drink/drug. And that is the rub for us parents: How can I not try to fix my child? How can I sit back and watch? How can they do this to themselves, to me, to their family? What could I have done differently? What did I do wrong? But again, this is about the addict and we parents just have to ride the waves, arms open for the fall; and the fall always comes. Hopefully, the fall will just be a slip, not a life altering or ending one.
I have heard this book has been made into a movie, I’m sure it’s great. But my guess is that the book is far more powerful with its written descriptions of emotion, feeling, and fear. If you are going through it, or if you have been through it, or if you know someone who is in the through of a child with an addiction, this is one for you. I wish you well, you are not alone.