My Fractured Life

Rating:
Summary: Stirring and Earnest, Styled By Many Influences
Review: What makes MY FRACTURED LIFE so interesting to read is how well it melds together widely variant influences. The easiest comparison one can make is to POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE by Carrie Fisher. Both are technically fiction, but obviously based on the author's own lives
in Hollywood. Stylistically, Travolta dances between 80s pop fiction influences such as Jay McInerney (MODEL BEHAVOIR) and dark depression era authors such as John Steinbeck (EAST OF EDEN). Addressing addiction with a brutal sense of realism shows clear influence of Hubert Selby Jr. (REQUIEM FOR A DREAM) and Jim Carroll (BASKETBALL DIARIES). Dealing with similar subject matter to RUNNING WITH SCISSORS and DRY and being voiced in a first-person pseudo-biographical way, comparison is also easily made to both the fiction and biographical work of Augusten Burroughs. The host of influences apparent in MY FRACTURED LIFE are many and diverse, and handled surprisingly well. It is a crisp, well structured book that covers a long-span timeline. References to popular events and cultural phenomena keep the story grounded in reality. The characters are earnest, stirring, and create emotional attachments with the reader. It is easy to care about these people. It is easy to cry at times, although like Burroughs and Fisher the author also injects a good deal of very funny humor often times when things might seem saddest.