Here’s where I admit
that I’ve read* more books
by Rob Lowe
than by Hemingway, Tolstoy,
Brontë, Miller, Garcia-Marquez
and Steele COMBINED.
—-
That is to say, I’ve read two Rob Lowe books, which—as of this time—constitutes his entire bibliography. And if he writes more, I’ll read them too, because reading both Stories I Only Tell My Friends and Love Life has brought me to one conclusion—I really like Rob Lowe.
I came to this opinion around midway through that first book of his. As a movie lover I loved the fact that he wasn’t afraid to delve deep into his professional disappointments and detail his experiences on the kind of painful flops most other actors refuse to even mention—much less devote half a chapter to. And per its title, he did indeed have some amazing stories—like the one about his chance encounter with Bill Murray in Paris, back when he narrowly avoided starring in Roman Polanski’s megaflop Pirates (back when it was supposed to star Jack Nicholson instead of Walter Matthau).
And I was charmed by his insistence on ascribing the various kindnesses bestowed upon him throughout his young life to people’s innate generosity and not the fact that he was—and remains—one of the most beautiful people the world has known.
That’s not to say the books were perfect. While far from descending into self-hagiography, he still manages to avoid the more well-known and less savoury scandals of his life—referring to them very obliquely at best in a way that might strike some as deliberately evasive.
Truth is, this surprised me in his second book. Not only because its title suggested a greater degree of intimacy, but also because I figured he had to have shot his charming anecdote wad with the first book and was now left with nothing but the nitty-gritty for the sequel.
But nope, Love Life is just as genially and charmingly guarded as its predecessor, which is entirely fair. Lowe doesn’t owe us anything; much less his takes on what are now decades-old controversies. So much time has passed, in fact, that he has managed to get married, have two sons and see one of them off to college.
And it is this story that serves as the gooey centre in his latest book—the one that justifies its title. Love Life is not a catalog of his past relationships and one night stands (although it does feature one awkward moment at a stay-over school field trip where one of his fellow chaperones—who he assumes he’s meeting for the first time—asks if he remembers her in a way that indicates he really should), but instead an ode to the true loves of his life, his wife and children.
Which is another reason why I like Rob Lowe. The truth is that—if he wanted to—he could probably get away with a bad boy reputation, if only because he still has the face and chin to pull it off, but that era of his life appears to be genuinely behind him and he has enthusiastically rejected it for the life of a husband and father. And in this book he makes just as compelling an argument for the rewards of family life than any of his contemporaries could for hedonistic self-indulgence.
This is most evident in the section devoted to his oldest son, Matthew, leaving home to go to college, which has been excerpted here at Slate.com. It’s a beautifully written chapter, where his emotions seep palpably from the page. Describing the trip on the plane he writes:
His favorite headphones are on and he is reading, so I can con¬sider him in freedom, without his awareness. I remember the first time I laid eyes on him in the delivery room. “He’s blond!” was my first thought. And I remember what I whispered to him when his eyes opened for the first time in his life as he peered in my face, and (I am convinced) into my soul. “Hello, I’m your daddy. And I will always be there for you.”
Sheryl has looked up from her iPad and mouths to me, “Are you okay?” I want to be, for her; I don’t need her worrying about anything other than the logistics ahead, and I certainly don’t want to draw any attention on the plane. But something about her face and the way she is looking at me, while I am looking at him, pulls the rug out again and I avert my eyes from her, from him; my sunglasses go on and I open up a newspaper, covering my entire face and anything that anyone might see, like a bad version of Maxwell Smart hiding from a KAOS agent. I am amazed that so much water can come out of the eyes of someone who dehydrates himself with so much caffeine.
See? How can you not like this guy? He even manages to pull off a classy Get Smart reference!
Speaking as someone whose literary diet is almost wholly consumed by books about pop culture personalities, Lowe’s two autobiographies stand out from the usual examples, which frequently range from self-aggrandizing to desperate. The difference is that those books are composed (if not actually written) by people who never really figured out who they were or who feel compelled to justify their past behaviour. Lowe falls into neither of these camps. He is admirably self-aware and has no desire to dig up what is now long buried and mostly forgotten.
He’s a dad, who just happens to be a famous actor with a remarkably symmetrical face. He’s a former screen idol whose life and choices mirror so many of our own—a star who saw the truth behind the star lifestyle and opted out for something much more rewarding instead.
Update
And we can add this to the reasons I like Rob Lowe:
This makes my month. Or more. ThankYou. http://t.co/jhKPQz8gzw
— Rob Lowe (@RobLowe) May 9, 2014
Hello, Rob…! His Cantonese gets a “B”, but, overall, totally excellent in “Wayne’s World”! (That is so funny…I heard a ” loh faan” guy in a suit order in Mandarin at a Chinese bakery yesterday…I tried to act like “ho hum”, but, yes, that is impressive when guys speak in different languages…!
I didn’t know that there was a theory that being handsome and an actor prevented men from being a great fathers in the first place. In my world, the assumption would be that great dads have always been around regardless of job title or their looks.
Who is making the assumption that men are prevented from being great fathers when they are good looking and acting in the first place?
I think it’s mostly a joke.
Hence the use of the word “symmetrical”. 🙂
This is great!