Kill 'Em and Leave

 Kill 'Em and Leave

By James McBride

Book three in my little foray into McBride. This one is a kind of hybrid of The Good Lord Bird and The

Color of Water: part memoir, part biography. This time the subject is James Brown. Or rather, the subject is how elusive the "real" James Brown is. Or rather, the subject is James McBride's encounter with James Brown's elusiveness. Over and over again, McBride hears from Brown's associates that he didn't want to be known.

So: How to tell the story of someone who doesn't want their story told -- and, given that he had been dead for a decade when the book came out, couldn't tell it if they wanted to? First: Make it about yourself. McBride is as central a figure in this book as James Brown. He sets the stage for this from the very beginning, relating his own brush with Brown when the singer lived in the Bronx. Or, rather, it was his sister's brush, as she was the one brash enough to knock on the Godfather's door and received an admonishment to "Stay in school Dott-ay!" But my favorite is this: "I came down here on a bum steer. No need to lie or toss that in later. No need to slip that in with the old excuse, 'I'm a musician too and I love the music," or The public needs a guy like me who can really tell it,' or whatever music critics say so the corporate-music taste makers can pump up the latest fifteen-year-old cuss artist while ignoring some real talent who's not good-looking or young enough. I needed the dough, plain and simple. The ex-wife dropped the hammer." It's honest and funny. It has personality. It's indicative of the writing throughout the book. This personal brush with the legal system, and the lawyers who navigate it, perhaps explains McBride's fixation on Brown's will, which, as of the writing of the book, had yet to be fulfilled according to the wishes of its author. Brown apparently wanted to leave the bulk of his millions to poor children in need of education. His own children, it seems, had other ideas.

Next: Portray Brown from as many angles as possible. For me, the book was most enlightening when McBride tears down the Hollywood depiction of Brown as a crazed troublemaker, exaggerating his low points so as to make him look like an addled buffoon. When, of course, the truth is much, much more complicated. But also of great interest are the many interviews that McBride conducts and relates with all sorts of Brown's associates, including ex-wives, former managers, and members of the band that made him famous. 

My own issue with the book was what I saw as distracting repetition. The same details and anecdotes popped up in two, three, or four chapters. For example, we hear the origins and meaning of the book's title, Brown's theory for how to keep his audience wanting more, over and over again. It feels at times, then, that this is a rambling tale told at a bar rather than a book. But, hey, I'd love to share a drink with a storyteller like McBride any day.