Searching for John Hughes

In his memoir, Rolling Stone editor Diamond relates the story of his failed attempt to write a biography of director John Hughes while working in Manhattan coffee shops and being almost too pretentious to stomach. Diamond grew up in the Chicago suburbs that inspired much of Hughes’s early work and escaped a broken home (abusive father, runaway mother) to scrape by in New York City, where he eventually began compiling his biography of Hughes. In between depressive episodes and alcohol-fueled bad decisions, Diamond plugs away at the book; when no sources are forthcoming, he resorts to lying to publicists, stalking, and outright inventing tales of Hughes’s day-to-day life (which, alongside factual discrepancies, make it difficult to discern any truth from Diamond’s accounts) to move the manuscript forward. All this, combined with Diamond’s disdain for (and discomfort with) everyone around him, makes it extremely difficult to empathize with him as a 20-something. Diamond’s book may appeal to Hughes die-hards, but readers simply looking for a fresh memoir should look elsewhere. [em](Nov.) [/em]