Robin by Dave Itzkoff

Read by Fred Berman

Wow. Just… truly. Wow.

When Robin Williams died, it hit me hard. Yes, he’d been in quite a few embarrassingly bad movies. But he’d also been the heart and soul of some that had been sources of joy and comfort and solace to me. He was a bright light in the world and the loss of that light made my world noticeably dimmer.

I was also deeply furious with him, for having taken his own life. And bewildered that somebody who was so loved by so many, and had such obvious and brilliant talent, would do such a thing. How could he fail to understand that the world would be a dimmer place without him? That lasted a long time.

Finally enough time had passed that when this book came to my attention I decided I could stand to read about him. And it was just right. Itzkoff takes us through his life story, from his parents and their backgrounds, through his lonely childhood and his insecure early career, to the years we remember best. And of course we didn’t know him at all. In some ways, nobody did; I came away with the impression of an incredibly lonely man.

Itzkoff is gentle with his subject, but thorough. This isn’t a money-grubbing, celebrity-shaming tell-all, by any means, and yet I came away with an impression of having at least glimpsed every side of Robin Williams, including the less-shiny bits. But I also came away with an impression of the whys. Why he became who he became, why he took those roles, why he ended his life. Whether my impression is accurate or not, of course I will never know. Nobody but Robin Williams really knew Robin Williams. But I feel like I know some of the reasons for that, and I’m glad. And devastated all over again that he’s gone.

The narrator, Fred Berman, does a great job giving us a feel for the voices of the people whose quotes he’s reading, without quite mimicking them. I’d give him five stars--but he somehow failed to learn that Marin (as in Marin County, where Robin Williams spent much of his adult life, so it gets mentioned a lot in the book) is pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable. This was seriously and frequently irritating and seems like a major oversight. Aside from that, excellent narration.