As Luck Would Have It

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There's nothing especially unusual in the enterprise of taking stock of one's life. As the late Barry Lopez wrote in Horizons, his exquisite 2019 memoir, "We, all of us, look back over our lives, trying to make sense of what happened, to see what enduring threads might be there." For my part, I am not sure how many coherent threads I have found, or if things make any more sense to me than they did when I began the writing.

For all my 32 years as a book review editor, I grumbled about how unseemly and presumptuous it was for callow pop stars and other

entertainers to be penning "memoirs" while they were still wet behind the ears. My only excuse for writing one now is that I am, astonishingly, 75, with a tenuous grasp of detail, and just egotistical enough to think four or five people other than me might want to read a book about my life so far.

Full disclosure: My life is based on a true story.

• excerpted from the Preface