Kirkus
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The godfather of shock rock gives readers a look behind the black curtain. Born Vincent Damon Furnier in 1948, Cooper spent his earliest years in the Detroit suburbs in a supportive, reasonably middle-class family, with God and TV at its center. The family moved a lot (“Without knowing it, I was in training for a life on the road”), and, at Phoenix’s Cortez High, where Cooper was a popular kid with jokester tendencies, he had an art class with Dennis Dunaway, another rock-music enthusiast, who suggested they start a band. Their inability to play any instruments was no deterrent. This alliance, with Cooper at the mic, would eventually lead to the formation of Alice Cooper, an aurally unsparing rebuke to the day’s hippie-dippie fare. The success of the band’s 1970 single “I’m Eighteen” set them up to finance lavish, controversy-courting, horror-themed stage shows, complete with prop guillotine and electric chair. The surprise for readers who aren’t already Alice Cooper know-it-alls is that the cartoonishness of his stage shtick, which he carried over to his solo career, fights with his off-stage persona: born-again Christian, family man in a 50-year marriage, reliable supporter of charities, and golf evangelist—“I only started taking it really seriously after I gave up alcohol because I had to find an addiction that wasn’t going to kill me.” It’s the clash between the two characters—self-aware, regular-guy Vince and his sinister, egotistical alter ego, Alice, who chimes in now and then in a different font—that gives this memoir its tension, as well as its juice. Readers can expect the customary rock-star rehab story, but Cooper opts for a careful consideration of his lyrics and stagecraft rather than the traditional celebrity memoir’s score settling. Mr. Nice Guy takes a hard-earned victory lap in this well-told tale. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.