The Royal We [Hardcover]

Im obsessed with Roddy Bottums new memoir,? An alt-rock sideman recalls navigating queerness, heroin, and a now-vanished San Francisco bohemia . . . Bottums candor is refreshing, and the book serves as a vibrant snapshot of a time when San Francisco was better known as a creative haven than a tech-bro bunkhouse. A melancholy tribute to punky, grassroots community-building. A dark, candid, well-written memoir of gay life as a punk musician with tales of drugs, a stint in rehab, camaraderie among friends, and, hanging over it all, the pallor of inevitable death and decay As much a love letter to a San Francisco that no longer exists as a reflection on his own life, Bottums memoir is bound to elicit nostalgia among fans . . . Accounts of Bottums time with the band [Faith No More], his coming into his own identity as a gay man during the height of the AIDS crisis, and his struggles with and eventual recovery from addiction form the bulk of a narrative marked by chaos and loss, but also a great deal of sweetness . . . Affecting, reflective, and unflinching. Bottum, the co-founder of the band Faith No More, offers up an elegy to a lost time and place: pre-tech bro San Francisco in the 1980s, when cultural ferment was in the air. Bottums touching memoir is a story of a gay man finding himself in a time of great exuberance and upheaval as the AIDS epidemic wiped out so many of the creatives that made that efflorescence possible. In his new memoir, the Faith No More and Imperial Teen musician writes with unflinching honesty about heroin addiction, gay sex, and his early and insanely open minded fling with his good friend Courtney Love . . . The longtime Faith No More keyboardist and queer icon says he wrote his new memoir Bottum's new? Faith No More keyboardist Bottum recalls coming-of-age as a gay punk rocker in San Francisco in his punchy debut . . . Bottums account toggles between wild-eyed memories of his adolescent antics, including drinking, smoking, andlã+