Book review: Crazy Enough by Storm Large

STORM Large's memoir deals with her life pre-40. She has issues, lots of them, and wants to share them all.

STORM Large received her 15 minutes of fame in the US as a contestant on Tommy Lee's reality-TV show, Rock Star Supernova.

Before that, she had sung in indie bands, largely around the West Coast.

Large's memoir deals with her life pre-40. She has issues, lots of them, and wants to share them all.

A confessed orgasm addict at five, she was soon watching porn with her mentally ill mother and aunt, by her teens was promiscuous and by her mid-20s, she was happy to trade fellatio for favours.

Of course, there are drugs involved, but at the heart of it all is a mother who could not provide a child love.

The ghost of Large's mother haunts every chapter. She dies in the first few pages, but the pain of resolving that relationship carries through the narrative.

Throughout the memoir, Large looks on her own journey, possibly getting a kick out of making the reader squirm, and reflects on the dysfunctional non-relationship she had with the woman she so deeply needed as a child.

As the story bounces around the unravelling of Large's psyche, we are bombard by stories of sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll.

With an obvious talent for singing and a look "built for Broadway" Large, by her own admission, wants to be more "Joey Ramone than Judy Garland".

The writing is often perfunctory, the stories are vaguely interesting and the book meanders.

Crazy Enough,
Storm Large,
Random House, $34.95