A Likely Lad

Product Information

The long-awaited, candid memoir from Peter Doherty, whose talent as a musician has more often been eclipsed by a Herculean appetite for self destruction: drugs, prison, prostitution, court, murder, death, robbery, car crashes and hospital emergencies. Fun is always enticing and being a bit naughty has a certain allure when you're younger and wanting to experience everything life has to offer. At Books2Door, we believe that reading is a fundamental skill that every child should have to help improve their vocabulary, grammar, and critical thinking skills. There is not much of a redemptive narrative arc, very little contrition, and Pete seems to indicate that it's everybody else's intolerance that is the issue and not his Herculian drug hoovering. At the end of the day though, you're not going to get a thorough, non-biased review out of me because I love Peter, and The Libertines, and Babyshambles.

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. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. It was more like me talking him out of it, saying,’ No, I’ll tell you what, if we’re still not signed in a year, then we’ll do it. He discusses poetry, Paris, philosophy, politics, the music business and his key influences (from Hancock to Baudelaire).In an incident that saw him imprisoned for burglary, he “started shouting and then booted the door in” of a flat in which he mistakenly believed band mate Carl Barat was hiding.

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. Hard drugs, tiny gigs on the hoof, huge stadium shows, collaborations, obliterations, gangsters and groupies – Doherty has led a life of huge highs and incredible lows.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. It's not the huge, salacious reveals that I'm necessarily interested in, it's the day to day mundanities, interspersed with random and unusual events that fascinate me. My English is poor but I love the Libertines and other Peter's music, appreciate poetry although sometimes struggle with meaning. By the end of the parched expanse of The Likely Lad, the reader will not be shocked to learn that the title of his biggest hit is Can’t Stand Me Now.