Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain

by Charles Leerhsen

Overview

The bestselling, “unvarnished” (The New York Times), “engrossing” (The Guardian), “gritty, well-researched” (The Economist)—and definitely unauthorized—biography of the celebrity chef and TV star Anthony Bourdain, based on extensive interviews with those who knew the real story.

Anthony Bourdain’s death by suicide in June 2018 shocked people around the world. Bourdain seemed to have it all: an irresistible personality, a dream job, a beautiful family, and international fame. The reality, though, was more complicated than it seemed.

Bourdain became a celebrity with his bestselling book Kitchen Confidential. He parlayed it into a series of hit television shows, including the Food Channel’s Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and CNN’s Parts Unknown. But his bad boy charisma belied a troubled spirit. Addiction and an obsession with perfection and personal integrity ruined two marriages and turned him into a boss from hell, even as millions of fans became enamored of the quick-witted and genuinely empathetic traveler they saw on TV. At the height of his success Bourdain was already running out of steam, physically and emotionally, when he fell hard for an Italian actress who could be even colder to him than he sometimes was to others, and who effectively drove a wedge between him and his young daughter.

Down and Out in Paradise is the first book to tell the full Bourdain story, and to show how Bourdain’s never-before-reported childhood traumas fueled both the creativity and insecurities that would lead him to a place of despair. “Filled with fresh, intimate details” (The New York Times), this is the real story behind an extraordinary life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982140465
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	10/11/2022
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	281,893
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Charles Leerhsen is a former executive editor at Sports Illustrated. He has written for Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The New York Times. His books include Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty; Crazy Good: The Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America; Blood and Smoke: A True Tale of Mystery, Mayhem, and the Birth of the Indy 500; and Butch Cassidy: The True Story of an American Outlaw. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Sarah Saffian. Visit him at Leerhsen.com.

Editorial Reviews

07/25/2022

Biographer Leerhsen (Ty Cobb) delivers an irreverent treatment of chef and reality TV star Anthony Bourdain (1956–2018). Leerhsen sources dozens of interviews and documented conversations to bring light to Bourdain’s private relationships, particularly with his parents. Growing up in the upper-class suburb of Leonia, N.J., Bourdain developed, in his own words, a “spoiled romanticism” born of a “smothering chokehold of love and normalcy.” He followed his high school crush (and later wife), Nancy, to Vassar College, where he struggled socially and academically before leaving to join the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Leerhsen shows how, while Bourdain grew in confidence at the CIA, he piled on drugs and debt, and later survived several New York City kitchens before landing at the now-famous Les Halles, obsessively scribbling in notebooks all the while. Leerhsen teases from the beginning that Bourdain’s tumultuous relationship with Italian actor Asia Argento, which began in 2016, intertwined with the growing desperation that led up to his suicide. Leerhsen also speculates on what that pivotal romance as well as relationships with restaurant owners, and other supporting characters reveal of Bourdain’s tortured psyche, despite how guarded his team keeps his posthumous image. Throughout, saucy quips are amply ladled on. It’s a three-dimensional view of a man who cultivated authenticity while he was alive, relayed with similarly frank humor. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Since Anthony Bourdain’s death in 2018, there have been a handful of books by and about him. . . . But there has yet to be a true biography of the late chef. The first one, carefully researched but 'definitely unauthorized,' [comes] from Leerhsen. . . . Based on interviews with those who knew Bourdain best, Leerhsen will contextualize Bourdain’s on-screen charisma and off-screen despair by revealing childhood traumas that shaped the man who was revered by some, feared by others and loved by all."

BookPage

"A candid new book explores Anthony Bourdain’s trials. . . . [A] gritty, well-researched new biography."

The Economist

"Seeing what the chef, writer and TV host saw on his last day alive in 2018 is only part of Leerhsen’s exhaustive research for the book. . . . The impressionistic portrait that emerges is of a complex man who combined swagger and spiky cool with deep insecurity, neediness and image-consciousness. . . . [An] unvarnished biography."

Associated Press - Mark Kennedy

"An unvarnished account of a turbulent life. . . . Grittier than anything we've read about him before. . . . [Leerhsen] is not here, though, to discredit or dismiss his subject. His admiration for Bourdain is nearly always apparent. . . .[Bourdain] would have admired the author’s guts."

The New York Times - Dwight Garner

Peels back the veneer of the Bourdain brand. . . . Leerhsen shares salacious details, but with an air of respect toward his much-beloved subject. . . . Bourdain’s life reads like a cautionary tale of a man who wished for something—and got it. . . . The world is better for his work, but at such a devastating price."

Booklist

Filled with fresh, intimate details, including raw, anguished texts from the days before Mr. Bourdain’s death. . . . Drawing on more than 80 interviews, and files, texts and emails from Mr. Bourdain’s phone and laptop, the journalist Charles Leerhsen traces Mr. Bourdain’s metamorphosis from a sullen teenager in a New Jersey suburb . . . [to] a uniquely talented interpreter of the world through his travels.

The New York Times - Kim Severson

"This isn’t an official Bourdain product or a hagiography. . . . This one is thoroughly researched and painstakingly detailed."

Boston Globe - Kara Baskin

"Since Anthony Bourdain’s death in 2018, there have been a handful of books by and about him. . . . But there has yet to be a true biography of the late chef. The first one, carefully researched but 'definitely unauthorized,' comes out this summer from Leerhsen. . . . Based on interviews with those who knew Bourdain best, Leerhsen will contextualize Bourdain’s on-screen charisma and off-screen despair by revealing childhood traumas that shaped the man who was revered by some, feared by others and loved by all."

BookPage "2022 Preview: Most Anticipated Nonfiction"

08/01/2022

Leerhsen's (Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty) latest joins the already-crowded field of Anthony Bourdain biographies, but his well-researched, thoughtful examination of the late Bourdain (1956–2018) claims to not cede to the marketing and protection of Bourdain's legacy but instead uncover the truths of the enigmatic chef's troubled life. Leerhsen is unapologetically honest about Bourdain's outright "obnoxiousness," obsession with fame (it's alleged that he was constantly checking social media for mentions of himself), and mediocrity as both a chef and a fiction writer (as proven by many examples of Bourdain's early writing). Delving into Bourdain's childhood, Leerhsen explores possible reasons for the young man's anger issues. He also examines Bourdain's three main romantic relationships, his complicated friendships with fellow restaurant employees, and his addictive personality. Leerhsen asserts that Bourdain remained an immature adolescent, and his relationship with actress Asia Argento fizzled due to his overwhelming neediness; the book argues that this created a perfect storm of desperation that led to Bourdain's suicide. VERDICT Leerhsen's page-turner provides a well-rounded portrait of Bourdain, acknowledging his many faults as well as his empathy, work ethic, and creativity.—Lisa Henry

Library Journal

2022-07-13
Like its subject, this razzmatazz biography zips along nicely.

After writing successful biographies on such colorful personages as Ty Cobb and Butch Cassidy, Leerhsen takes on “crash test dummy extraordinaire Anthony Bourdain (1956-2018), who “didn’t hide his scars and other imperfections as most celebrities do.” With zesty verve and material from more than 80 interviews, the author dramatically unfolds an entertaining, ultimately tragic tale. A “comic book obsessed nudnik,” Bourdain was born in Manhattan on his literary hero’s birthday (George Orwell) and grew up in New Jersey. Deeply influenced by Hunter S. Thompson, “Angry Anthony” was raised in a household under the “smothering chokehold of love and normalcy,” as he wrote in Medium Raw. Traveling with his parents in France, he had his “Madeleine moment” when he ate his first oyster. Or did he? According to Leerhsen, Bourdain was quite adept at tweaking his own bio. After spending summers in Provincetown working in restaurants, the college dropout attended the Culinary Institute of America. Though undisciplined and often drug-addled, he learned discipline at CIA as well as a “bare-knuckled philosophy of human relations.” In 1978, he went to New York City to write fiction and got a job cooking at the Rainbow Room. Leerhsen deftly works his way through Bourdain’s many cooking gigs as he climbed up the ladder while developing his belief that he could “perform a kind of alchemy that would somehow meld cooking with the twangy-angry punk music he held so dear.” On April 12, 1999, the New Yorker published Bourdain’s popular article, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This: A New York Chef Spills Some Trade Secrets,” which “hit all the tetchy talking points that would make him first a best-selling author” and a star with Kitchen Confidential. There followed his many popular TV shows, which “would get richer, more nuanced, and also sadder as time passed.” Pair this with Tom Vitale’s In the Weeds and Laurie Woolever’s Bourdain.

A chatty, quick-witted portrait of a complicated, tormented man.

Kirkus Reviews