Scene - Abel Ferrara

“Scene” by renowned filmmaker Abel Ferrara tells the author’s story of rising to cinematic fame while battling drug addiction. I found the book a tad hard to read, likely because there wasn’t a lot of depth to a topic so universally devastating. 

I kept wondering if the author was targeting a voice like the raw, unvarnished street gangster narration in “Wiseguy” by Nicholas Pileggi but perhaps it was simply his Italian heritage in New York that made him write in a somewhat dispassionate monologue that detailed chilling experiences in a casual, matter-of-fact tone.

With that said, I was impressed that Ferrara’s first-hand narration was always tinged with humililty as opposed to self-aggrandization. This is a hard line to walk in the inherently self-centered memoir genre, but he pulled this off with skill, and this made him a likeable main character in his story.

This memoir is a fairly quick read, so if you find yourself drawn to the less dramatic in your literature, it came out on Tuesday.

In continual gratitude to Simon & Schuster for the Advance Reader’s Copy.