BEAUTIFUL THINGS : A MEMOIR

In AA we say it doesn’t matter if you come from Yale or jail, all addicts are the same. In his harrowing and compulsively readable memoir, Hunter Biden proves again that anybody—even the son of a United States President—can take a ride on the pink horse down nightmare alley. There are plenty of memoirs about the Three Rs (rum, ruin, and redemption), but there are sections in this one that stand out with haunting clarity. Biden remembers it all and tells it all with a bravery that is both heartbreaking and quite gorgeous. He starts with a question: Where’s Hunter? The answer is he’s in this book, the good, the bad, and the beautiful.’ Stephen King When he was two years old, Hunter Biden was badly injured in a car accident that killed his mother and baby sister. In 2015, he suffered the devastating loss of his beloved big brother, Beau, who died of brain cancer at the age of 46. These hardships were compounded by the collapse of his marriage and a years-long battle with drug and alcohol addiction. In Beautiful Things, Hunter recounts his descent into substance abuse and his tortuous path to sobriety. The story ends with where Hunter is today—a sober married man with a new baby, finally able to appreciate the beautiful things in life. ‘This is an astonishingly candid and brave book about loss, human frailty, wayward souls and hard-fought redemption. Beautiful Things is so concise, so unflinching and propulsive, that outside of turning the pages and occasionally picking my jaw off the ground, I didn’t move between the first page and the last.’ Dave Eggers