If there were ever a celebrity autobiography that proved the necessity of a good ghostwriter, Tommy James‘ Me, the Mob, and the Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James and the Shondells would be it. James’ ghostwriter, Martin Fitzpatrick, is the man tasked with taking all the stories James tells and turning them into a coherent narrative.
Sadly, Fitzpatrick lacks the ability to take James’ life story and turn it into something exciting. It’s a severe disappointment that a story involving mob hits, drugs, and multiple marriages is completely lacking in any sort of forward momentum. The book moves along like it’s just working towards a page count, bang bang bang. Character development is nil, and the story is perfunctory – everything seems to be a story that’s been recounted so many times, it’s lacking in any sort of excitement.
This is a man who had his first hit when he was 19, and was one of the biggest artists in the country before he was 25, with an extraordinary run of hits, and yet, with the exception of a segment where James’ “Hanky Panky” get discovered in a cut-out bin, the story has no sense of how amazing this life is.
For as many mobsters as exist in Me, Mob, and the Music, they’re introduced as if the reader is familiar with them, despite the fact that many of thm are obscure. When mobsters start getting knocked off, and new folks take over, the mafia lists of succession become the height of boredom, stopping the book dead in its tracks.
When it’s all said and done, this is a frightfully dull autobiography. There are no revelations of intuited discoveries from Tommy James. For all of James’ supposed “in-depth” story, he devotes more page space to his Christian awakening than he does to honestly speaking on being an absentee father to his son, Brian.
In better hands, this could have had the pathos or the pace of a gripping thriller – especially with the mob’s involvement with James’ label, Roulette, and its head, Morris Levy. However, even with those elements, Me, the Mob, and the Music manages to take the loom of the IRS, and people getting whacked left and right, and make it dull as dishwater.
When this book comes out in a major motion picture, what you think are mundane details will come to life…big time! Some of the gory details, I’m sure, will come out as Tommy James is used as an adviser; and, you are certainly right about the hits from age 19 to 24 or 25 – WOW!
I enjoyed the book immensely, and can’t wait for the movie! Dale Smith, Lebanon, IN
@Dale: If the movie is a good movie, it doesn’t make the book any better. The details aren’t mundane, they’re just related in a way that totally failed to capture my interest.
I hope it’s not a movie, I didn’t think much of the book either.