Bourdain In Stories by Laurie Woolever

Author: Laurie Woolever 

Title: Bourdain In Stories 

Publisher: Bloomsbury 

Published: 2021

Pages: 464

Genre: Biography 

     When Anthony Bourdain died in June 2018, fans around the globe came together to celebrate the life of an inimitable man who had dedicated his life to traveling nearly everywhere (and eating nearly everything), shedding light on the lives and stories of others. His impact was outsized and his legacy has only grown since his death. Now, for the first time, we have been granted a look into Bourdain's life through the stories and recollections of his closest friends and colleagues. Laurie Woolever, Bourdain's longtime assistant, and confidante interviewed nearly a hundred of the people who shared Tony's orbit-from members of his kitchen crews to his writing, publishing, and television partners, to his daughter and his closest friends - in order to piece together a remarkably full, vivid, and nuanced vision of Tony's life and work. 

     Coming across Parts Unkown was one of those happy late-night accidents. I was at a loss as to what to watch so I reached for my go-to genres either travel or food. Something I can happily while away a few hours watching. That Tv show hit all the marks I was looking for. In the next few months, I devoured them ravenously, relishing in each new location. Tony seemed to do this effortlessly, no matter the challenge he was up for it. This was a man who seemed like some mystic guru teaching us what it meant to be human on this crazy spinning chunk of rock we all call home. But even then you could see there was a dark side to him. The odd remark in a wrapping up or the way he looked staring off-camera. Nevertheless, it still came as a shock as I neared the halfway mark on parts unknown to hear he had ended his own life. A little while after it happened I grabbed up a copy of Kitchen Confidential, maybe I was searching for an answer as if there maybe be some hidden key lurking below. 

     When someone famous dies like this I think we struggle. Whilst we never know them it still stings like a friend going. But we have nowhere to focus that grief, no funeral to attend. So maybe we go searching through their body of work to try and find one. But that's the thing it's not hidden there, no tangible secrets to pry open so instead, we must enjoy them for what they gave us. Needless to say, I finished the show but never picked another book of his up. It seemed like a fruitless search and I need to take a minute and let the dust settle. When someone I know suggested this book to me as it had just come out, I figured it might be worth picking a copy up. No longer in search of a reason for his death but to better understand the life that had come before it. The flame that burnt inside him just as much as any of us. The important part of anyone's journey around the sun. 

     Woolever has created a book that aims to do just that. Rather than going down the usual approach to biographies of telling the story of his life in a linear narrative, she welcomes up to the table. A chance for old friends and family to tell you what he meant to them. In many ways, it feels like that part in the wake when people grab whatever their favorite tipple is and set down to set the story straight one last time. The sheer scope of people she has managed to gather within these pages is most definitely a fitting selection as she aims to show us the good, the bad, and the ugly of Bourdain's life. You have to admire an author who sets out to give a much more even view of their subject. And whilst you could have gone straight for the heart and only shown the best of whom he was I feel that anyone who was familiar with him would know you had stacked the deck. 

     Within the passages of this book, I got to have a better grasp of who he was. The author has managed to write a captivating account of one man's life. Whilst not using her own word she has curated those of others into what feels like one flowing conversation. I think it helps a great deal that she has his family on board with this book. You get a sense of who he was after the cameras had stopped rolling. When the mask can slip down to his side a much more candid side can escape. As you can imagine there are a great many laughs to be found here. His dry humor escapes from the lips of others, almost as if he is sitting just to the side. An anecdote for every action. But I guess when you have lived a life as far-reaching as his there is a lot to fit in. She also shows us the other side to Bourdain a  man who at times could seem maybe a little cold or distant. There does seem to be a reason for this thought the book goes a long way to show what a big heart he had. And maybe just maybe that's the point, He needed to protect himself and that heart from a world that can be all too uncaring at times. 

      For me, this was a book full of such love and admiration for the man he was and would become. But it is also an honest one, for a man who could be very stubborn and driven. Either way, I truly believe no one else but him and his crew could have created such a show. It transcended both a cooking show or a travel one. Just like the show with each chapter, I got a fountain of knowledge and a vast reservoir of the sum of a life. But it is always hard to escape the inevitable conclusion. As we inch closer to the final chapter you can see the river's banks starting to swell. So when the levees finally break and it all comes crashing down you can feel your heart go with it. Woolever did such an amazing job curating this book that it is hard not to. I am still grateful she did, as I feel it has given me a far better idea of who he was and this band of misfits he pulled together. 

     It would be far too easy for me to write so much more about this man and the book. But I feel that it might just be getting away from me. So to pull this thing back on the tracks. Yes at times he feels like this mythical mix of colonel Kurtz and black beard steering his ship into the great unknown. But you also get to see the dorky nerdy side, the one with an amazing passion for travel and cooking, who loved his family and friends in the only way he could, for better or worse.