Nov 07 2008
Book Review: Adam Nimoy Lives Long & Prospers
Adam Nimoy’s new book is My Incredibly Wonderful, Miserable Life– An Anti-Memoir. Adam’s father, Leonard Nimoy found his fame as Mr. Spock in the short-run (only 3 seasons, believe it or not), but long syndicated and wildly popular Star Trek series of the 1960s, but Adam’s childhood was shaped as much by his father’s hardscrabble upbringing as by his stardom.
“I’ve never had much luck arguing with him. Have you ever argued with a Pop Culture Icon? Have you ever argued with a guy who can cause a frenzy among thousands at a convention hall simply by performing a Vulcan hand salute?
Because when you’re dealing with a man who’s adored by millions of fans the world over, when you lock horns with a man from the tenement streets of Boston who clawed his way to the top of the Hollywood heap, good luck with the argument.”
Nimoy senior also struggled with alcohol and later became sober himself. Complicated as their relationship may have been, being the son of Leonard figures very little in the book, which focuses mainly on the year that Nimoy separated from his wife, moved out of the family home, and became active in AA. He writes honestly and extensively about the pain of being apart from his son and daughter, who both refused to stay at his new apartment and often cried and begged him to move back into the house. In one scene, the children were supposed to have dinner with him at the apartment, but daughter, Maddy, changes her mind at the last minute and asks to be taken home immediately. In the car, she unleashes a tirade:
“How can you do this to me? I’m through with you, Dad. How do you feel about never seeing me again? I will never, ever come back to your stupid apartment. How do you think it will feel to live alone for the rest of your life?”
And this toward the father who still picks her up and takes her to school every morning, helps with her homework every afternoon, and whom she will profess undying love for by the end of most days. The divorcing dad stuff is very powerful and spot-on.
Interwoven are anecdotes about hot women he meets at AA meetings, bright moments he experiences as a teacher, stupid things that derailed his directorial career, and the occasional story about life with Dad.
My Incredibly Wonderful, Miserable Life contains no revelation or inspiration of note, and reads like a cleaned up, neatened up two-year diary of a nice guy giving up pot and getting divorced, whose dad just happened to be a Vulcan.
