Book Review: Craig Ferguson celebrates being 'American'
"American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot" (Harper, 268 pages, $25.99), by Craig Ferguson
Just who does this chap think he is?
Craig Ferguson, by his own account, is a Scotsman with a brogue and excellent teeth. A former punk-rock drummer. A recovering alcoholic. A sitcom star (well, supporting star) on Drew Carey's show. A film director-writer-leading man. A standup comic and overall "vulgar lounge entertainer."
Ferguson is also, of course, host of CBS' "Late Late Show," where he displays a gift for sly, often silly humor, a range of loony impersonations and a curious mind that, when he's interviewing, puts him in the rare league of Dick Cavett or even Bill Moyers.
Ferguson is also a proud American citizen (as of January 2008).
Any of this would serve as selling points for Ferguson's new memoir, "American on Purpose."
Ferguson also happens to be a fine writer – witty, reflective and candid. (Two years ago he published "Between the Bridge and the River," a novel with a bold autobiographical streak.)
Granted, "American on Purpose" won't come as much of a surprise to any reader who's already a Ferguson fan. For four and a half years on his late-night show, he has regularly drawn on his full and tumultuous life to nourish his monologues as well as the intimate way he connects with his viewers.
In a late-night realm where other hosts typically project themselves as beer buddies, Ferguson – overtly complicated, charismatic and flirtatious – is a guy with whom you might want to go home. Let other hosts keep the world at arm's length, with them cloaked in a layer of affable body armor. Ferguson is a kinetic cutup teeming with foolishness, brilliance, defiance and heart.
All this is captured in his book as an entertaining connect-the-dots journey.
And, like Ferguson, his book never stands on ceremony.
It begins with Ferguson observing former first lady Laura Bush's underpants.
He was surprised enough to find the likes of himself, this fresh American, among the fancy and powerful at the 2008 White House Correspondents' Association dinner, for which he was guest speaker. He was further surprised to see that when Bush, in her "elegant silky frock," stood with the light behind her "you could see her undies," which he goes on to describe as "big, comfortable knickers, what are known in enlightened circles as 'passion killers,' in what looked like a floral pattern."
Top that for reportage, Tom Wolfe! And it's only the first page.
Cheap shot? Maybe. But Ferguson spares no one, himself least of all. He doesn't hold back beating up on himself with his troubled, often painfully funny, past.
He reports that he was a bed-wetter late into his childhood – then again, as a drunk, off and on until he was 29.
Such was his sense of despair at his alcoholism that, one notable night during a miserable Christmas season, he resolved to kill himself, only to fail in his plan to swan-dive into the Thames River from London's Tower Bridge. A drinking buddy detained him for some holiday cheer and he never got around to leaving the bar.
Fortunately, he later cleaned up his act, with Feb. 18, 1992, familiar to Ferguson followers as the day he got sober.
The high drama of Ferguson's life is counterbalanced by his portrait of evocative ordinariness. A son of a postal worker and a grade-school teacher, he grew up outside Glasgow, Scotland, in a dreary, 1950s-era planned community later named "the second-worst town in the United Kingdom."
He tenderly recalls his beloved uncle, "Gunka" James, with whom he spent a memorable eighth birthday buying his first rock album and getting sick to his stomach on the bus ride home.
From the perspective of his 47 years, Ferguson can chart the crazy logic of a life of odd jobs, hard partying, colorful relationships, and repeated setbacks in his loosely defined career in entertainment. It all seems to have been in the service of escaping the routine existence into which he was born, and finding something more, without wrecking himself in the process.
And all the while, America was sounding its siren call. He always knew that's where he belongs.
"America gave me everything I have today," declares Ferguson on the last page.
It's a robust tale he has put between covers – a life story he continues every weeknight, crowing, "It's a great day for America," on "The Late Late Show."
