Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography, Laurie Woolever

Ecco, 2021, 442 pages, C$36.99, ISBN 978-0-06-290910-7

I don’t usually go for celebrity worship, and most obituaries of public figures don’t create as much grief for me as for others. Let’s keep parasocial relationships in perspective: Someone I don’t even know dies? Well, that’s terrible. They will be missed, and my sympathies go to those who knew them. But I usually won’t make much of a fuss on social media or otherwise.

But Anthony Bourdain’s death in 2018? That was another story. It hit much harder. Yes, I react more to writers dying than other types of celebrities—the consequence of being a big reader from childhood on. But even then: Bourdain, man… Just click on his name tag below this review and you’ll understand why I held him in such high esteem.

It wasn’t just his death, it was the manner of his death: suicide, hanging himself while he was out travelling and recording another episode of his exceptional TV series. Right after getting his heart broken by none other than actress Asia Argento. For someone who exuded as much sheer joie de vivre as him, writing hard-hitting books that celebrated life as much as food, it seemed incomprehensible. Or rather, as incomprehensible as anyone we don’t really know—depression is a dangerous head-mate, and even the most authentic of celebrities never fully reveal themselves to their audiences.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one struggling to come up with an answer. Three years later, Bourdain’s life is now the topic of a documentary film, Roadrunner, and an oral biography assembled by one of Bourdain’s editors. (An unauthorized biography is also reportedly just around the corner.)

Can an answer be found in Laurie Woolever’s Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography? Well, yes, somewhat. Among many other things.

While I don’t think that oral biographies can fully replace a knowledgeable biographer, they have their own specific place in allowing knowledgeable friends and family members to tell their perspective. The role of the oral biographer is to cull everything into a coherent whole, preferably one that flows well from one intervention to another.

So, we find in the list of interviewees an impressive selection of family members, celebrities who regularly interacted with Bourdain, companions-in-arms of his earlier ventures, and other people with stories to tell. One of the most interesting contributors, for instance, is Anderson Cooper, who shares a few memories of working with Bourdain, but also his own reflections on the difficult relationship anyone can have with celebrity, and what remains when the cameras are turned off and you end up alone in a hotel room far from home.

Arranged mostly in chronological order, the biography takes us through the familiar beats of Bourdain’s life, but in greater detail than I’ve seen in any other form—including Bourdain’s own writings. Special attention must be paid to the years during which a younger Bourdain lived fast and hard in New York City streets—cooking with a rogue gallery of miscreants, doing drugs, unsuccessfully trying to become a published writer, and hardly thinking about the long term. Bourdain, not to mince words, was an addict, did bad things and, frankly, did not expect to live much longer.

Keep that in mind, because that’s probably the key to the rest of the story. Unlike many cooks and addicts who burn out early, Bourdain found an unlikely second act as a celebrity food writer, and then became a TV show host, his celebrity exploding far beyond that would have been reserved for him as even a best-selling writer. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Bourdain’s ascension into pop culture became a lifeline—that if it had not taken place, what ended up happening would have happened earlier.

None of this is comfort for those who miss him, for the family and friends he leaves behind, and for those who would just like another book, another column, or another episode. But it does make everything just a bit more understandable.

It’s not a perfect oral biography, though—while Woolever does great work conducting interviews and whipping them up into a coherent whole, she should have intervened more often to establish context and smooth over some of the transitions. Even for Bourdain fans, it’s not a given that every facet of his public life is familiar, and there are junctures in which even a line or two of context would have been very helpful.

If you’re wondering how this oral biography compares to the documentary Roadrunner, rest assured that the portrait is very similar—after all, more or less the same people are interviewed for both. But while the documentary manipulated a few things for dramatic effect, and restrained itself from casting blame on Argento, the book is both far more detailed and less coy about its conclusions, with several interviewees squarely pointing a finger at Argento’s actions. On the other hand, many of the most informative sound-bites come from the film—David Chang’s reminder that “at the end of the day, Tony’s dark as f-ck, man” or David Choe’s “I mean, he ran for a long time, but you’re not gonna outsmart pain” encapsulates a lot about Bourdain in a few words. And you can understand how people would be harsh on him—his self-destruction left behind a large production crew in an abominable situation and, unforgivably, a young daughter.

If you’re looking for a definite answer about why, you won’t get it. But the elements of a credible answer are there—his own personality and temperament, his increasingly ambivalent relationship with fame, and the Argento breakup that clearly had a huge influence. Blend all of this together, peek behind the scenes of glamour, remind yourself that depression isn’t rational, and what happened is what happened.

The whole thing makes for bittersweet reading, as with any raucous wake: we get many more anecdotes of just how cool, how passionate, how literate, and how friendly Bourdain could be, but we do so knowing that he is no longer with us. As far as epitaphs go, however, Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography is a far better one than most. You get Bourdain at a remove, but you get more of him for just a while longer.