As Andy Dufrense asked, “Do you trust your wife?”  I did, and it got me a month of drug-soaked rock-and-roll with Jim Morrison.

Late in December Melissa mentioned that she was going to read thirteen books in the coming year.  Intrigued, I mentioned that it would be an interesting thought for us to select a book for one another to read for the month of February.  The goal was to choose a book that the other would never read of their own accord.

She agreed, which was her big mistake. Melissa got one of my all-time favorites, Ender’s Game – a book I’m sure she’d never have picked up of her own accord.

As for me, I got off easy with Wonderland Avenue, the autobiography of The Doors’ publicist Danny Sugerman.

The verdict?  I thought Wonderland Avenue was a fun read, even for those who don’t particularly like The Doors.

Sugerman paints a good picture of Los Angeles in the late 1960s and early 1970s, showcasing the rock-and-roll lifestyle in all its glory.  From booze to pills to coke to heroin, it seems as if there wasn’t any chemical concoction he didn’t try.  The stories involving other high-profile folks like Iggy Pop and McKenzie Philips were particularly interesting.

As with most of the books involving people with histories of substance abuse, there’s a troubled childhood.  He doesn’t candy-coat his history, but for a time I had flashes of Augusten Burroughs and Caroline Knapp.

Where this book diverges, however, is in the way Sugerman finds salvation.  He doesn’t simply kick the habit and go on to live another day; quite the opposite.  Days from death, he checks into a hospital and begins therapy.  It’s only there that he finds what he’s been looking for all this time, and it’s a satisfying finale to the journey.

Now for the really fun part of the exercise – how a couple’s choices for one another are oddly in sync.

As with Ender’s Game, Sugerman’s autobiography is a tale of innocence lost and a childhood squandered in a strange place with unfamiliar rules.  Looking at these books with a longer lens, they are remarkably similar in the journeys taken by the narrators.

Melissa first read this book years ago, so her choice likely wasn’t made consciously. That makes it all the more wonderful, I think.

I can’t speak for her, but I’m considering this exercise a success.