Greenlights

I very much regret not getting the audiobook. It would have been spectacular to listen to the author read this.

This is a memoir. It was made out to be more than that because (1) the cover is funky, and (2) it has a lot of pictures of artifacts (?) of McConaughey’s life, but make no mistake – this is a pretty straightforward autobiography.

That’s not to say it isn’t interesting. McConaughey is an interesting guy, and he doesn’t hold anything back. You learn about a lot of drugs he took, the legendary night was arrested while high and naked while playing the congas, and about how the secret to health is masturbating to Lord Byron and “taking a deuce” in the morning. The man has no filter.

He’s also a wildly philosophical guy, for better or worse. When he wrote this book, he did it alongside apparently hundreds of journals he’s kept over the years. Scattered throughout the book are pictures of random pieces of paper containing poetry and philosophy that he’s written and collected throughout his life.

You know the image of McConaughey as this slightly confusing guy giving rambling acceptance speeches and making weird monologues in commercials for Lincoln? He’s like this in real life apparently. For years while he was making movies, he drove around the country in an RV with his dog, and every once in a while, he would fly off into the Amazonian or African wilderness and commune with the natives. This wasn’t just PR – this was genuinely him, I guess.

I’m glad I read it. It’s not that long – the pages are weirdly thick, and there are a lot of pictures of his writings. It goes very, very quickly.