Twentieth-Century Boy: Notebooks of the Seventies

This reviewer is so tired of journals being published. Random thoughts and stories about people one doesn’t know tend to become tedious. However, this book being set in Minneapolis and New York City is interesting. Duncan Hannah can write well, and this book is dramatic and lurid. Oscar Wilde could have been referring to this type of journal when he said, “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” Or in The Importance of Being Earnest:“Do you really keep a diary? I’d give anything to look at it. May I?” / “Oh, no. You see, it is simply a very young girl’s record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication. When it appears in volume form I hope you will order a copy.”

After reading the chronicles of the artist’s young life in dissolution and alcohol, one cannot help being amazed that he still looks so well and has attained an advanced age. One gets contact DT’s simply by going through the almanac of pernod, scotch, and bourbon and nights that go from glam to tawdry. The book is also interesting for this well-read intellectual’s list of books, movies, and albums.