The Night of the Gun: A reporter investigates the darkest story of his life. His own.

Written by David Carr

Narrated by Charles Leggett

From David Carr (1956–2015), the “undeniably brilliant and dogged journalist” (Entertainment Weekly) and author of the instant New York Times bestseller that the Chicago Sun-Times called “a compelling tale of drug abuse, despair, and, finally, hope.”

Do we remember only the stories we can live with? The ones that make us look good in the rearview mirror? In The Night of the Gun, David Carr redefines memoir with the revelatory story of his years as an addict and chronicles his journey from crack-house regular to regular columnist for The New York Times. Built on sixty videotaped interviews, legal and medical records, and three years of reporting, The Night of the Gun is a ferocious tale that uses the tools of journalism to fact-check the past. Carr’s investigation of his own history reveals that his odyssey through addiction, recovery, cancer, and life as a single parent was far more harrowing—and, in the end, more miraculous—than he allowed himself to remember.

Fierce, gritty, and remarkable, The Night of the Gun is “an odyssey you’ll find hard to forget” (People).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Aug 5, 2008
• ISBN: 9780743580496

David Carr

David Carr was a reporter and the “Media Equation” columnist for The New York Times. Previously, he wrote for the Atlantic Monthly and New York magazine and was editor of the Twin Cities Reader in Minneapolis. The author of the acclaimed memoir, The Night of the Gun, he passed away in February 2015.

Reviews for The Night of the Gun

[scarequotes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

At first it seems like a gimmick: Investigating your own life to write a journalistic memoir. But Carr puts the device to work, producing a book that on one level is a junkie-makes-good story, on another level is a story about how we tell our own stories, on another level a rumination on the gifts and limitations of memory, and on another level is just a guy trying to make sense of stuff the best way he knows how.

I've known a few addicts, I've known a few journalists, I'm fascinated by memory, I'm a relatively new dad who frequently feels like I'm pretending at being normal (even if I wouldn't describe myself as a maniac, as Carr does). This book hits a lot of sweet spots and knocks 'em out of the park.

[lancasterways · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Based on the stats to the side of this page, I?d guess that those readers, including myself, who took a dim view of this book are far outnumbered by a generally receptive audience. One could conclude that, on the whole, only those readers who enjoyed the book are likely to take the time to record it in their LibraryThing account and write a review of it. I am anomalous then: not only did I dislike David Carr?s memoir, The Night of the Gun, but here I am, dutifully warning my fellow readers to shy away from it.Carr is himself something of an anomaly (in reality, if not in ?type?): the addict who made good. After spending his twenties and thirties as a coke addict, crackhead and raving psychotic, Carr managed to pull himself together, maintain (for the most part, with recent slip-ups) nearly twenty years clean, raise two daughters and succeed professionally, landing a job at The New York Times. It?s a story you?ve seen in a dozen movies, but seems impossible in real life. Musing on his past, Carr decided to investigate it as he would any other story, as a reporter, to learn if it all happened as he remembered it (specifically the eponymous ?Night of the Gun?). Carr?s approach was novel and promising?by employing journalistic techniques, he quickly learned some disturbing things about his past and who he had once been, and the story becomes, to a degree, the study of the mutability (and transmutability) of memory. Interviews and court documents reveal a narrative that Carr himself had once lived but of which he was now only dimly aware.Sadly, Carr?s method promises more excitement than it can deliver, and it becomes a gimmick. Yes, he interviews old friends and associates, but the revelations gleaned from those conversations are not as surprising or significant to the readers as they must have been to Carr. Carr?s discussion of memory is shallow and, given the potential of the topic, ultimately detracts from the book.Carr?s narrative is at its strongest and most focused as he documents his addiction. When he begins discussing his discovery, the narrative unspools and the story loses its power as Carr waxes treacly, invoking wonder at his daughters, the value of hard work, and the redemptive power of love. It?s all fine, but it?s dull, poorly done and self-indulgent. One gets the impression that this began as a story for the Times?it would have been better had it stayed that way.The Night of the Gun is not all bad. Carr is a talented writer and rarely fails to paint a scene vividly or sketch someone?s character quickly, and he often employs a good turn of phrase (all skills of the journalist). Carr?s portrayal of his addiction and descent into (near) madness is incredibly well done. Carr was on the right track with his story?this is something of interest here for readers?and his methodology and concerns are intriguing, if underdeveloped. Carr argues that everyone?s story deserves to be told. I can?t argue with that, but I think he and I might quibble over the length alloted each narrative.

[gkleinman_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Written in reaction to the backlash over "the more fiction than truth" memoirs like A Million Little Pieces, David Carr's Night of The Gun takes a nearly scientific approach to the reporting of a life of addiction and recovery.At the start the book is a fascinating musing on the difference between what actually happened and how we remember it. But the novelty of this device ultimately tires and we are left with a brutal account of an ultimately unsympathetic character who makes it nearly impossible to root for him.Night of The Gun does have it's high points, but most of them come in the first half of the book. The backside of the book is an exercise in endurance with Carr turning his focus to the tragedies of the people around him and an account of him watching his carefully constructed world fall a part.At the end of this little experiment of a book I came away feeling exhausted and unfulfilled. The conclusion I reached was that I'd rather read the mostly true recollections of someone going through he'll than the blow by blow reporting based on the mostly true recollections of others.A Million Little Pieces may be filled with a million little white lies, but I enjoyed that book a million times more than this one. Memoir isn't really pure nonfiction and that's a good thing as a storyteller will always triumph a reporter when it comes to creating a compelling personal stories.

[tuke_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Incredibly depressing book about addiction . . . Last 75 pages are emotionally harrowing.

[neftzger · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was one of those books that I didn't want to put down. David Carr has lived a very colorful life, but what intrigued me about this book was that he was a journalist who came to acknowledge his own lack of objectivity. In fact, he discovers that none of us are objective and that our memories aren't simple video cameras recording our lives. Our memories are true to our emotions rather than the facts, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. It does mean that we're all imperfect and that it takes a lot of work to piece together a scene based on witness testimony.As a recovering drug addict and alcoholic David was thrown into single parenthood and openly admits that he wasn't a martyr in any sense. He openly admits to his own fallibility and failures, but at one point while his children were still young he chose to recover his life. This book is his investigation into who he was and the impact of his mistakes on the lives of those around him. His writing style is journalistic with use of strong metaphors and it works well for this book.

[newsieq · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In his New York Times obituary, I learned of David Carr?s memoir, published in 2008. From that obituary, I read of the dreadful years spent lost in a fog of drugs and later in the throes of alcoholism. I admired his writing and wanted to learn more about him. I was curious about how he moved from drug house to the newsroom of America?s best newspaper.Usually I?m not a big fan of memoir ? in my estimation, they?re often meandering, boring and self-serving. Not so The Night of the Gun. In fact, David Carr was so concerned about getting things right that he went back to people and institutions he interacted with back when he was a druggie. Those in-depth interviews find their way into most chapters. Mr. Carr found that his memory was faulty and it was in the pages he wrote about the nature of memory that he was at his most brilliant. He read his own medical and police files, and obtained information about his stays in de-tox and rehab. Then he told the story as he found it. It was not a pretty picture and he didn?t spare readers the more sordid details. He was his toughest critic. I was riveted by The Night of the Gun. When is put it down, I couldn?t wait to get back to it. One of the best memoirs I?ve read.

[maryslinde · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

David Carr works for the New York Times. He is from Minnesota and I worked with his mother. My bookclub thought it would be a good choice. Although I have a deep understanding of chemical dependency, I was disappointed in this book. I felt as if the author wandered and expressed his thoughts in such a random way.

[damfino83 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An almost painfully honest memoir- taking a serious journalistic approach to ones memoir is a great idea. From a serious drug addiction (having your young children waiting in the car in a bad neighborhood while you go inside to buy and use crack) to tracking down stories while high, reading about Carr's attempts to juggle his addiction with family and work before he becomes clean is akin to watching a beautiful, rare train get into a wreck.Very interesting, fast-paced, heart-wrenching at times and hilarious and sweet at others. Carr balances journalistic writing with prose very well, which is a relief when reading about someone on a path of self-destruction being painfully honest about their mistakes. On top of that, I think journalism students would find this book particularly interesting, and his website has further info and recordings of the work he did to put the book together.

[catien_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a brutally honest memoir by an amazing writer. Carr's life story will stay with me for a long time.

[reverends_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Autobiographical tales featuring survivors of drug addiction and substance abuse have always been popular. There is something intriguing about listening as someone describes hitting rock bottom, and then somehow managing to miraculously turn themselves around.Of course, such books are so popular that one must sometimes wonder whether the facts have been embellished for the sole purpose of entertainment. The debacle surrounding A Million Little Pieces alerted the literary community to the dangers behind that. While biographies involve investigations on behalf of the author, autobiographies become suspect, as the possible motivations of the self-diarists make them unreliable witnesses at best.This is where David Carr's book steps away from the rest of the pack. The Night of the Gun almost doesn't qualify as an autobiography. He remembers very little of what actually occurred during his days of drug abuse, and what he does remember is almost wholly unreliable. So, be an investigative reporter, he uses the skills on hand to delve into the mystery that is his own life.This is where Carr's book leaves the others behind. He wanders through the down and out periods of his life with a grim curiosity that never lapses into self-pity or melodrama. He could be writing about somebody else entirely, and in some ways, he is. His style isn't emotionless; one would have to be truly cold and indifferent not to feel something while looking back on some of the things Carr did had had done to him. But there is a slight detachment from the source material that keeps his observations from becoming self-serving or, even worse, self-pitying. He not only makes no excuses for his own actions, he doesn't even understand some of them himself.Carr's book will appeal to fans of similar books, such as Permanent Midnight, but don't expect a carbon copy of the format. If Carr's story doesn't appear to have the obviously uplifting ending or tone that you were expecting, that's because it wasn't meant to be that kind of book. Carr isn't telling us his story so we can learn from his mistakes. He exploring his own painful past, like probing the raw nerve beneath a sore tooth, because he just can't bring himself to leave it behind, at last not without knowing what it all must have appeared from the outside looking in.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Carr?s autobiography telling the story of his long history of addiction and shorter history of recovery, done as what he remembers plus investigation that he did as if he were reporting a story?which reveals a lot of things that he didn?t remember correctly, such as who exactly was holding a gun on one important night. He eventually took custody of his twins, born prematurely when both parents were addicted to crack and nearly incapable of taking care of themselves, much less babies. It?s beautifully written, and it has the messiness of life?his redemption story is about getting himself together to take care of his kids, and that is powerful, and yet when he relapses he drives drunk while they?re in the car. He achieves what seems like objectivity about his own history, including the parts he can?t remember, though I wish he?d talked a bit more about how he felt about all this, including about baring his lowest points for inspection.

[satyridae · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating on many levels, this memoir was written by a reporter who fact-checked himself rigorously. In so doing, he discovered that many of his memories were false or significantly altered from the reality experienced by the other participants. The layer added by his exploration of the nature of memory is perhaps more interesting that the somewhat banal "crackhead wises up" story it's wrapped around.

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Carr uses a unique approach that I found engrossing to tell the harrowing stories of his alcoholism, drug addition, and battle with cancer. Candid, raw, and often quite funny.

[athurman-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This one's a coin flip between 3 and 4 stars--maybe 3 for the first half and four for the second. The idea of doing a "fact-checked" memoir to counter the entropy and self-deceptions of one's own drug-and-booze-addled memory is really intriguing. And Carr is sufficiently honest about the loathsomeness of his own junkie days to deliver a compelling portrait of addiction. But the result of that starkness is that I just disliked him and couldn't wait for him to pull his act together, which he does somewhat in more nuanced second half.