A Likely Lad

Product Information

Was really looking forward to this one given The Libertines are one of my favourite bands, and Doherty’s story is very poignant. You may think you have heard them all (and plenty more fabricated ones too), but the indie rock star is set to lift the lid on his decade-spanning career with the release of a memoir. With his trademark wit and humour, Doherty also details his childhood years, key influences, pre-fame London shenanigans, and reflects on his era-defining relationship with Libertines co-founder Carl Barât and other significant people in his life. With his wildest days behind him, Doherty candidly explores – with sober and sometimes painful insight – some of his greatest and darkest moments, taking us inside the creative process, decadent parties, substance-fuelled nights, his time in prison and tendency for self-destruction.

There are the years spent in and out of prison, including the day Doherty appeared in court and was arrested again when one of the 13 wraps of heroin he was carrying fell out of his pocket. When he explains the appeal of John Lydon – he “had this image of being a bit rotten, vicious, but actually he was a really intelligent, sensitive kid… quite timid” – you feel he could be describing himself: soft-spoken, always preferring “Peter” to “Pete”, pinpointing the vulnerability that endeared him to his fans. But just as he approaches a moment of insight, or self-reflection, he veers away again, choosing instead to focus on an irrelevant detail. In addition, he has mentioned in an article for The Guardian that the best stories were missed because several people's lawyers did not approve of the stories being leaked. Doherty reveals that beyond the tabloid hoopla, it wasn’t all brinksmanship and squalor; there was joy too, in the excess, in his relationship with Moss – at times “an Evelyn Waugh scene”, we learn, all secret rendezvous and four-poster beds – and in the camaraderie among bands, especially in the Libertines’ more ramshackle days.He's finally happy with the direction his music is now going, and after reading this book I truly couldn't be happier for the guy. Unfortunately this book lacks the poetic warmth Doherty is known for speaking in, and forgoes a lot of talk of the relationship between him and Carl in exchange for tedious goings on about drug binges and the like. But I saw heroin ruin the lives of so many people - many of whom you'd never have expected to get mixed up in such things.

Born into a military family, Doherty spent much of his youth moving from place to place across Europe. There's nothing glamorous about finding oneself living alone in a run-down bed-sit, spending all day laying on a filthy mattress on the floor with your only thoughts focused on scoring gear and shooting up. Literature was a big thing for Doherty: Orwell, Wilde, Baudelaire, Thompson, Rimbaud, Bukowski, Cocteau, Genet, Doestetevsky, Pushkin, Bolaño.I was so excited to discover that Peter had finally written an autobiography, disappointed that I didn't manage to score a signed copy (although I have plenty of other signed bits), and further disappointed that it's ghost written.

He also didn't describe how he felt about Amy's death (for example), or describe his complex love for Carl.The reason Doherty’s ruinous lifestyle “worked” within the confines of three-minute songs is because music can make even the most dreadful things seem exotic and exciting. I mention all that because despite never getting hooked on smack, and having been able to just walk away from the party scene unscathed, once I got a bit older, more sensible (and probably a lot more boring, lol) I recognise a lot of the chaotic lifestyle Doherty talks about in this book. I was saying, ‘Yeah, I’ve taken it, but it’s all right, it’s quite nice,’ and it all kicked off and went downhill from there, really, with Mum and Dad. Towards the end of the book, Pete seems to open up more and takes on a much more optimistic tone with the musician finally seeming to grapple his life, meet a woman he loves, and commit himself to sobriety (sort of). Despite the admission that “it was tricky, really, thinking about how you get a band to function at the same time as being in active addiction”, the defiant revelation that the singer believed himself to be “in a raging war against the industry to prove… I could get music out there and make a living from it and not have to play by their rules of having to go to rehab” implies that his deranged dependency was not so much an illness as an ideology.