He was christened Vincent Damon Furnier, but the world knows him as the original shock-rocker Alice Cooper, whose big ’70s hits I’m Eighteen and School’s Out launched a decades-long music career. Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: A Rock ‘n’ Roller’s 12 Steps to Becoming a Golf Addict is essentially an autobiography, charting Cooper’s journey from Michigan to Arizona to California and through his eventful showbiz life. But the memoir is equally Cooper’s account of his struggles with alcohol addiction and how a newfound passion for golf came to supplant his attraction to booze. Cooper has proudly been off the sauce for years, thus saving his personal life, but his affinity for golf may be even more obsessive. He plays hundreds of golf rounds a year, spending every available moment on the course, the result of which is sobriety and also an amazing six-handicap. He’s become one of the finest amateur golfers around, and he’s found a way to keep his still-shoulder-length hair out of harm’s way. Cooper’s book is a quirky but inspiring effort, filled with humor and sincerity.
Valiant Women is a vital and engrossing attempt to correct the record and rightfully celebrate the achievements of female veterans of World War II.
