Jolly shocking!

Where does Jolly Lad: A Menk Anthology rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Really stands out for its authenticity.

What did you like best about this story?

The author's sense of humour about some quite appalling events!

What about John Doran’s performance did you like?

His regional accent, which lends everything he says a certain integrity and humour.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The descriptions of what he went through as a young man.

Any additional comments?

I have already read Jolly Lad, but recently I have been listening to the audio book, which has just come out.

There is something quite addictive to hearing Doran read. The horrific nature of what he endured hits you even harder, becomes all the more real. His fatalistic regional drawl - perhaps more Mancunian than Merseyside, though he grew up in the Liverpool suburb of Rainhill - infuses his words with a dark humour and irony, a disarming honesty and integrity.

Doran introduces Jolly Lad as a book about recovering from alcoholism, about the day he stopped drinking - at 37 - and finally found out what he "would be like as an adult." But as he himself also acknowledges, it is actually about so many things. About growing up Catholic and working class in Northwest England in the Thatcher years, about social upheaval and change, about battling mental illness, about the hideous things we do to ourselves, and how it is those very hideous things that help to define who we are. It is a book about love and redemption and fatherhood, about simple happy Hollywood endings and how there are no simple happy Hollywood endings.

And it’s about music, rich with anecdotes. Though he was told “you can write about whatever you want but it can’t be about music” by the editor who commissioned the column that would evolve into the book, references to music are ubiquitous throughout. It is the prism through which he looks at so many things, from childhood rebellion (“the first time he caught me I was in the middle of watching ‘Cars’ by Gary Numan when I was eight”) to the differences between Liverpool and Manchester (“warm hearted, psychedelic, romantic” vs “urgent, intellectual, dark-hearted”) to depression (“imagine all the inner and outer signals of your life running down a cable which is plugged into a 24-channel mixing deck…fourteen channels…attached to malfunctioning samplers, spitting out violently loud gobbets of low quality audio.”)

It is music that provides for him the “markers that he throws into the void” and “living mnemonics connecting...to people, time and places.” And it is music that contributes to his salvation, his subsequent career as co-founder of the highly respected music and culture website The Quietus, helping to liberate him from a life of addiction - if final absolution truly comes in the arrival of girlfriend Maria and son John.

Jolly Lad functions on many levels. We are treated to Doran as passionate cultural historian, with his extraordinary knowledge of post-punk and alternative pop culture, much of which he has gained through firsthand experience. But it is also auto-biography, an intimate and quite exposing account of one man's battle (and love affair) with alcohol, at turns amusing and horrifying. Along the way, he gives us countless insights about life in Britain over the last 30 years, all delivered with thoughtful and self-deprecating prose.

If there is one issue I have with the book, it’s that it doesn’t feel like Doran ever completely confronts the root cause of his drinking - or perhaps it is more accurate to say that he sometimes begins to, but only wants to take it so far. He does offer some reflections as to the origins of his malaise (e.g., the music of the Simple Minds, the possibility of Nuclear Armageddon) and there are many others implied (growing up in the shadow of Europe’s largest mental institution, a difficult relationship with his father, his experiences as an altar boy, a savage attack by local thugs that led him to almost lose his sight in one eye), and he does describe in great detail his anguished physical and mental state after he finally gives up the booze. And yet he declares: “I had a moderately unusual upbringing but then, doesn’t everyone? There wasn’t anything in particular that made me an alcoholic or a drug addict or mentally ill. It just panned out that way. It was just my bad luck.”

I'd like to know more. Somehow, though, I think he's more Desert Island Discs than In The Psychiatrist’s Chair. And anyway, this could be a bit disingenuous. Doran already sheds so much blood, sweat and tears (all three, quite literally) in the course of this gritty, entertaining and heartfelt memoir. This is a very courageous book. Do I really have a right as a reader to ask for more?

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Bloody treat

What did you like most about Jolly Lad: A Menk Anthology?

A story full of trauma told by someone who hates the idea of telling a story full of trauma.

What did you like best about this story?

The humour, and a vivid insight into alcoholism by someone who has wandered an alternative path in all aspects of life.

What about John Doran’s performance did you like?

Oh it is perfect. Just the right side of monotonous with the excellent occasional accent.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Maybe not 'moved' but I particularly enjoyed the chapter where John discusses concept of privilege with his drug dealer. It moved me to much laughter.

Any additional comments?

A glorious man and engaging story to spend ten hours in the company of.

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Well told slices of rollercoaster life 80s onwards

What did you like most about Jolly Lad: A Menk Anthology?

### May as well give the full review ! ###This is beat in Herbert Huncke's original sense of the word, “I'm beat, man”,But it's a different beat - without the glamourising distance of the Atlantic. To people versed in the mythical Celtic roots of Jack Kerouac and Robert Anton Wilson, this may come as a sip from the tap root itself.Would it be lazy stereotyping to suggest that what you are reading could only come from someone with roots in Ireland, and it's diaspora? Here words and booze meet as different facets of the same urge to tie together disparate and conflicting irrational threads of the cloth of culture, history, place, family, art. What better way to stick those ends together with mankind's favourite solvent, or dissolve them altogether?Addiction specialist Bruce Alexander maintains that social dislocation is the prime driver of addictions – the colonized, the emigrants and the cast aside.Anyone lucky enough to catch John Doran's intense spoken word collaboration with highly regarded art-rock outfit Arabrot will have been given a survey of generations of accumulated sufferings and indignities, ancestral dislocation, underpinned by moaning, growling guitar noise.John Doran takes you on a diving trip, and he has very heavy boots to lend you so that you can see exactly what's in the Octopus's Garden.At times this writing conveys the sense of someone floating below the surface of a lake, looking up at the surface, where small waves harmonically reinforce into uncontrollable ones and turbulence seems far away. In a way there is a sense of death, of sinking into the silent pool, of time passing yet not passing, of a clock ticking in an empty room.But it's not all sea monsters and shipwrecks. You won't be alone in the water as you swim past a wide variety of strange divers headed for the reefs and shores of the modern world.As other's have noted, and they're absolutely right, Doran can crack a funny story. His sense of the joys of the absurd is highly acute, and he crafts them with obvious love. This is a large part of the work, not to be lost in the dark undercurrents.If you read this in public, you will find people looking round at you...This should hardly be surprising. In the modern lingo of neurotransmitters, synapses, axons, credit must also be given to the deep power of the natural high, the basic drives from the brain stem and the amygdala, the reward mechanisms of the social life, the demonstration of verbal skill, the instinct to breed and nurture. But science is mostly absent from this collection. No needless poking under the bonnet when driving is the essential activity, and nobody laughs at chemical formulae.But forget the intoxication for a moment, because there is the music.Leaving moist and emotional Liverpool for the dry geography and culture of Anglo Hull, the yarns ride the train of American underling culture as it blends with the working class youth culture of the ignored (capital I?) North. Here is a world of off-centre indie kids at the edge of a faded transatlantic counter-culture, when Grunge was the music press Movement of the Moment, rock was very, very angry, and dance was very, very happy.Graduating to the nerve centre of the London metropolis where signals from all cultures emerge and become global, something reflected in his journalistic output, the anecdotes start to go global. Various abroads are visited, with varying degrees of national affinity. Belgium didn't really know what it was in for when it invited Doran & co. over for drinkies.However, most of the action is domestic, and mundane. Cold, windy and mundane. Pubs, factories, caravans. Kerouac had a hut at Big Sur in which to endure his Crack Up. Doran maintains repeated lows and fracturings in the low rent world of bedsits, squats, slum apartments. These are described with characteristic absorption, as are the intense mental experiences the people that occupy this hinterland often are subject to. See these as reports from the real fringes of society and you have something that is seldom really brought to light - a twilight world of struggling and abandoned people, yet without the ghetto glamourization of gang neighbourhoods, Banlieues or the Projects. As Doran elucidates, the people there generally fail quietly and painfully, and don't go out in a blaze of defiant gunfire and pumping bass.In London the story takes an upturn. Like Wilde, you will find yourself in the gutter but looking at the stars, because in this story Doran succeeds as a music journalist and proceeds to cross paths with (or simply just cross) some of the more famous, infamous, nefarious and fabulous of our ritual leaders. Enjoy more chuckle-inducing anecdotes as Doran & co get tangled up with Mick Hucknall's suits, the drummer the Jesus and Mary Chain daren't allow to sing, a sexual cyborg from the West Indies and assorted stars.Despite wandering through post-modernity (or whatever the jargon word is now) and it's hellscape underside, Doran seems to return to harbour, after all the noise and wildness, with old fashioned monogamy and the family. No abandoning England forever to live in a sex commune in San Francisco, or alternative lifestyle in a writer's apartment in New York or Berlin. No returning to die, sodden, in his mother's home like Kerouac.I'm sorry to say that if the fabled illuminati seeded the world with drugs in order to engineer a radically new society, the effort ground to a halt with John Doran.It's wife, child, family and cups of tea. Things in the end, he seems to decide, worth struggling and living for. Which may not be the thrills that you, the dear reader, look for in your culture, and it's not very beat, but which nevertheless is how the tale goes.So… you will find here an intense read, some slices of post 80s life cut out with a saw toothed knife, but not without marzipan.The spoken word version is, if anything, better – and delivered straight from the horse's gut as Doran makes a great first-time narration of subjects that don't easily come to the throat. Imagine a guitar strung with raw nerves and strummed along with your biography.And now a final word regarding reader and listener expectations. Don't expect a simple narrative in either version. This is, after all, a collection of pieces and there are discontinuities of subject, tone, period and style – though it generally hangs together in chronological order to yielda narrative.As they say in coffee shops nowadays, enjoy, if you have the stomach for an octuple espresso that makes your eyeballs rattle.

Who was your favorite character and why?

This isn't Lord of the Rings, these are real people. However, some of these people definitely have character.

What about John Doran’s performance did you like?

Spoken with conviction and directness by the author, who delivers in a manner any practiced raconteur or actor would be proud of. Broadcast quality.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Nobody could fail to be moved by the rock bottom alcoholic despair and razor's edge living, or laugh out loud at some of the absurd comedy.

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A Brilliant Writer!

Would you listen to Jolly Lad: A Menk Anthology again? Why?

Yes I will, there are so many funny anecdotes, references to events and bands that I could easily listen again.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Jolly Lad: A Menk Anthology?

It is hard to pick just one but the Pixies, Throwing Muses gig was a great memory I felt like I was there!.

What about John Doran’s performance did you like?

I'm glad I didn't read the book but heard it straight from the author because he read it with sincerity, warmth and humour.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Hard to pick one but when John Doran described the moment he had accepted he would die and was only concerned with making his transition as easy as possible was very, very sad.

Any additional comments?

I enjoyed listening to this book so much, John Doran is a gifted writer, his ability to bring back the times, characters, places and sounds that have surrounded him is amazing. This is such a hopeful book it shows how a clever mind with an unquenchable thirst for exploring creative experiences can get sabotaged by alcohol, drugs and then unpredictable brain chemistry but it also shows how a clever mind can survive all these things with a big project and the support of love ones. Anyone who is struggling with any of these things would do worse than listening to this audiobook.

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Insightful, relatable, moving and actually pretty funny.

The drink and the writer, the music and the drugs, John Doran's memoirs convey the mess and depression of a life lived struggling with addiction without denying the power of intoxicants to deliver life-changing, mind-expanding and downright fun experiences.

It's almost like a confession at times, but he steers clear of remorse in favour of reflection, attempting to see blotted and hazy years with as much retrospective clarity as possible. Although addiction and depression have been a much more all-encompassing thing in his life than my own, they've still been a constant, and I found it all extremely relatable, from the alienating factory work as a young man, to the blown out emotional spectrum of fatherhood, with all the metal and acid house running through everything. Anti-glamorous, just like real life. Highly recommended.

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Resonates loudly!

For those of us lucky enough to grow up before the internet, in the uncertain but culturally rich times of seventies and eighties Britain, Jolly Lad will resonate as loudly as the music that obsesses the mighty John Doran. His plain speaking and honest, yet eloquent and erudite tone regales intimate ups and downs in his life and, in doing so, turns the key on ones own memories. So vivid are his testifications that they drew out the similarities and differences with my own life, to not only become better acquainted with Mr Doran, but to develop a greater knowledge of myself.

For those of you lucky enough to grow up with the internet, Jolly Lad gives important insights into what it was like to negotiate the world as an outsider without the on-tap support an online life can provide. Carried off without a trace of self-pity but with a candid joie de vivre and humbled humour, Jolly Lad responsibly recalls reckless episodes to form tales both cautionary and compelling.

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Jolly Good

Any additional comments?

This is not a my-drink-and-drugs-hell book, the author insists, but he makes his years in thrall to these substances sound pretty unappealing: cockroach-riddled squats, blood in the bathtub, facial disfigurement, repeated soiling of oneself. There are some bravura passages, such as the time he tastes his first properly made cocktail in Claridges, and the time when travelling to work one morning after a particularly vicious bender, sweated poisons crystallising on his shirt, he mistakes a child with its face painted as a tiger for a dwarf of death. Did he drink to fill the huge void within him? Is his void bigger than anyone else’s? Doran doesn’t have the answer to these questions, but what he is clear on is that total abstinence (aided as it happens by attending AA meetings) was the only available solution to him. A problem with books of this kind can be that the reader wants to hear about the degradation, the depths and the self-recrimination - the latter, post-sobriety part can be rather dull. Doran avoids this by writing entertainingly about his time as a music journalist, both drunk and when sober, including how he came to acquire Mick Hucknall’s suits and the time he travelled to Slovenia to listen to heavy metal in a cave. The book also has some great descriptions of Doran’s boyhood in working class St Helens. His father appears to blame all the country’s woes during the ‘80s on U2 – not an unreasonable point of view, when you think about it.

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Moving, poignant, laugh-out-loud funny memoir

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Defo. I usually hate commuting around London but the last week has been a thrill to do so while listening to John Doran read Jolly Lad. It is one of the most human, humane, funny, poignant, moving and thoughtful memoirs I've heard and ultimately, I found it very life-enhancing. John is one of the greatest writers around today and I loved his turns of phrase, wit and approach to recovery, fatherhood, music, life. I really enjoyed hearing the story being read in John's voice. Strongly recommend!

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One of the most realistic yet entertaining books

What made the experience of listening to Jolly Lad: A Menk Anthology the most enjoyable?

Having read the book, [and loving that] the audio version bought new life to the words.. I picked up on nuances I had missed the first time around, and hearing the stories spoken out loud in John's voice bought even more dark humour to them. I loved the book...all over again. And it is still worth noting that this is NOT "my drink & drugs hell" but a very sardonic, realistic, darkly humourous look at addiction with not an ounce of self pity in it. Which is rare. Great to read, great to listen too. You will find yourself chuckling out loud time and time again.

What other book might you compare Jolly Lad: A Menk Anthology to, and why?

There is no comparison. John's stories are his own.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The moments with his family, girlfriend and son. The love he has for them, that gives him strength in his darker times. Also the moments of compassion and emotion he talks about even in the midst of his addiction. His feelings of being 'different' and the strong friendships he has built over the years. Also, the support he always offers people in a similar situation.

Any additional comments?

JUST BUY IT

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Excellent, Highly Recommended

What did you like most about Jolly Lad: A Menk Anthology?

Early on in Jolly Lad, Doran is encouraged through writer's block by a friend who declares that one must write “what they know”. Doran has indeed written about a life that many of us know, at least in part, with stories and memories strung together by familial impact and a love of pop music. Starting with the awesome and slightly terrifying grandeur of martyred statuary in a Catholic Church, he moves along into an adulation of Adam Ant, a grudging love of U2 (with particular emphasis on the Unforgettable Fire) and the bizarre truth of a Sugarcubes show was that incredibly violent, yet also completely fantastic.Another key facet of the story, however, is a history of emerging addiction: it's origins from a single can of lager to a pattern of consumption that devours days, memories, and relationships. As these issues coalesce, Doran's reading of his own work out loud becomes an unrelenting cascade of events that have befallen him on his trip to becoming a music journalist. Some are mundane, some are unbelievably cool, some are wrenchingly sad, and still others are frankly hilarious, even in the midst of situations that, in retrospect, could be deemed quite dangerous. But this is the point of a person coming to terms with their own life stripped of an insulating layer of drugs and alcohol -- of willingly embracing the complexities that each day presents. Doran discloses his struggles without flinching, sharing stories that are highly personal yet also familiar to anyone who has had to step back from the deceptively simple joys of endless nights out. Jolly Lad is honest, disarmingly funny and for anyone who has encountered these difficulties themselves, an inspiring and ultimately hopeful read.

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