Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas

I don't follow art, but I'm intrigued by art. So I chose to read and review this book without any knowledge whatsoever of Fischl or his art. (Surely, you say, you could have at least thought about the implications of the title and could have done a quick Google search. Oh wise one, yes, I could have and should have.)

Call me ugly names if you will, but Fischl's art is not my cuppa-tea. His art is disturbing. Very disturbing.

All of which I learned after finally doing a quick Google search. After I'd already committed to reading and reviewing the book (my bad...if you will please excuse the pun).

It was with great reluctance that I decided to go ahead and try chapter one. I was surprised to find Fisch is a solid writer (well, apparently Fischl with the help of Michael Stone is a solid writer), able to put together enough pages about how art came to him (he isn't really sure how it came to him) and about his disfunctional family-of-origin and about his attempts to get past his alcoholic mother and about how he established happy grownup relationships to make a nice book. Yes, there is the usual celebrity name-dropping and pages of photos of that disturbing art, but I must admit that Bad Boy is a compelling story.