It is difficult for those who publish
their own memoirs to escape the imputation of vanity. I offer here the history of neither a saint,
a hero, nor a tyrant. –Esquiano
Jonathan Ford is
a nice man, I have gotten to know him online.
However, I had difficulty reading his book. Perhaps it touches too much on some of the
issues that have made my married life painful. For Jonathan Ford, a series of bad investments
made him ‘lose everything’, even though he has a friend paying for him to live
in a townhouse, he still drives his Porsche, and travels often to visit his
children. For someone who thinks of the
argument with his second wife about whether to add a patio or a pool to their
home, I guess it must feel that way.
Many of the problems he has faced in his life are undoubtedly first
world problems. My soon to be ex-husband
and his family also made some poor financial decisions that greatly affected
the direction of our marriage and so reading parts of this book were difficult
for me emotionally. In many ways this
book could mirror the story of any gambling addict.
An autobiographer
should stick to writing about the most important events in his life. A bunch of stories about your life doesn’t
constitute a book, even if it is a memoir or autobiography. When you add stories about other people’s
scandals in your memoir, it becomes gossip. I really, really don’t care about the people
that were on Jon’s football team or his past co-workers and their personal scandals. There are many instances of ‘name dropping’
famous people he has come across.
I’m not sure
what kind of audience Jon intended to write this book for. He assumes the reader knows what he is
talking about without explaining much.
Most definitely this is the case with the oil trading aspect (though
even if he did thoroughly explain that business I doubt I would understand it
and I don’t think I’m alone in that) but he also writes about people and events
that lived/happened before my generation was born. I skipped the sections pertaining to sports
and oil trading. Which, at least the oil
trading, is a great portion of the book.
If someone interesting in oil trading were to read this book he would
probably find it a gold mine.
Jon has a remarkable memory. He can
remember what he ate and what he wore thirty years ago along with traffic jams
he suffered through, times when he’s had diarrhea, small disagreements he had
with others, bugs that bit him, football games he has watched and played, but
why any of this is significant enough to put in a book is beyond me.
The
writing style of this book is scattered.
The paragraphs run on a bit, often changing subjects several times
within one paragraph. He has a good
command of vocabulary and unless you find certain subjects to be emotionally
distressing or the business aspect to be downright confusing you will find it a
light read. The book contains most spelling and grammar mistakes I have ever
seen in a published work. He accidentally calls his son by the wrong
name not one or two but three times. This
is more a reflection on the author’s editor than the author though how you can make
a mistake on your first born child’s name is hard to grasp.
All
in all this book is insightful but can be ultimately frustrating for someone
who does not understand mental illness (mainly anxiety, depression, addiction
and possibly additional personality disorders).
John goes into great detail
about his anguish, but some readers will never be able to understand why,
considering that for most of his life, even during the times of his greatest
despair, he had everything anyone could ever want. Apparently it’s true that mental illness has
no respect for the wealthy.
Who should read this book? This book is not a happy book in any way and
has no redeeming value. In fact, toward
the end we see that the whole work was actually one protracted suicide note
written by a man who is making a valiant effort to understand himself. If you are a businessman or trader, I
encourage you to read this book. I will
also recommend it to anyone who suffers from unexplained depression/anxiety
although I do warn you it might aggravate your sense of stability.
