American Scream

I have been a Bill Hicks fan ever since my best friend turned me onto a few pieces of his routine. Since then, I've purchased every released CD and collected as much material as possible. I have to admit that I was a bit wary of my purchase of this book once I actually started looking at the reviews. I'm not sure what was wrong with some of the other reviewers... I found this book absolutely stunning. It is well written and very informative. There is but one point where I disagree with the author. She claims that identifying the life of Bill Hicks as a tragedy is missing the point. I started out thinking his life was a tragedy, read her book, and now I see it as an even bigger tragedy. Nevertheless, she's written a very good book, and I can't help but recommend it to anyone with respect for the man.

Occasionally I get one of those books that make me ignore everything else in my life, take a day off work and shut everyone out until it's finished. "American Scream; The Bill Hicks Story" does the memory of Hicks great honor. The book takes a surprisingly unbiased viewpoint to the lifestyle and material of Hicks, establishing very significant links from the emotional voids in his childhood to the contempt for group mentality and consumerism that radiated from his material. While it's easy to agree or disagree with the topics and viewpoints of Bill Hicks, it's most difficult to report them impartially. "American Scream" remains impartial, and is a rare class of books that holds consistently to that measure. Like Hicks once asked his mother, who was disturbed by his constant onstage cursing: "Focus on the message, not on the words". It indulges in his selfish and personal co-dependencies, along with his almost anarchic outlook on choices and possessions. Bill Hicks was a determined man, and the book follows him through his triumphs over alcohol, drugs and unhealthy relationships to color in the character that so many of us only know from masterpieces like "Rant in E-Minor". Enjoy the book. We miss you Bill.

I was waiting for a book about Bill Hicks, any book, but dreaded that the author would leave Denis Leary out of the book for fear of legal reprisal. Leary is almost as important a part of this story as Hicks himself. It's the story of a true innovator who dies in obscurity and his hack rival who jumps into the public consciousness. A great book and a very fast read.

Every comic should be made aware of the genius of Bill Hicks. Cynthia True's biography is both accessible and facinating. She educates the reader without talking down to him. I believe that Bill would beam at this account of his life. It is specific, concientious and fearless. Just like it's subject.

This look at a stand up's life, (a comic I didn't know, hadn't seen perform,) had the ring of authenticity. I believed that Cynthia True did the work and asked the questions. Her passion for, and her perceptions of this world of comics and one individual in it, his early demise, was true to the time in which he lived. Not only do I learn Bill Hicks, but I learn the era that surrounded him, providing his material. It was clear that the author not only revered Bill Hicks but that she was not a stranger in this world of comics.