Ray Lopez

I just read all three memoirs by James Brown, The Los Angeles Diaries, The River and Apology to a Young Addict, over a period of two days. I would highly recommend taking this journey. It's challenging not to use the cliches in describing Brown's writing so I will cut to the chase and tell you that his narrative style echoes that of Twain and Hemingway. Like Hemingway, he honestly, and often brutally, tells his heroic story of survival and resilience with short, sharp sentences that describe the action and painful tragedies in his life. Yet at times, his prose flows like Twain writing about Jim and Huck on the river, free to love each other outside the evil in the world. It is lyrical, especially when he ends a chapter with insight and hope. I can relate to many of his experiences, addiction, loss, hospitalization, desperation, survival and redemption. Jim Brown's story, his brave bearing of his soul from prepubescence, through adolescence, adulthood, middle age and officially senior citizenship, is precious reading that will encourage and inspire you.