A controversial new Anthony Bourdain biography publishing October 11 has already created outrage among the food writer and travel documentarian’s inner circle, according to the New York Times. Down and Out in Paradise, which publisher Simon & Schuster has described as “definitely unauthorized,” is filled with painfully intimate details about Bourdain’s life. Most notably, it brings to light a series of heartbreaking texts between Bourdain and his girlfriend Asia Argento sent hours before his suicide in 2018.
Author and journalist Charles Leerhsen based the book on more than 80 interviews and documents, texts, and email exchanges sourced from Bourdain’s laptop. The chef’s brother, Christopher Bourdain, called the biography a hurtful, defamatory fiction, the New York Times report says. He told reporter Kim Severson that parts of the book were “fabricated” or “totally wrong,” and demanded Simon & Schuster not publish the work without correcting certain details he deemed erroneous. The publisher disagreed with the accusation: “We stand by our forthcoming publication,” Felice Javit, vice president and senior counsel for the publisher said. Leerhsen told the Times that “the estate has not objected, and I don’t anticipate any objections” regarding his surfacing the material from Bourdain’s laptop.
Former colleagues and line cooks declined interviews, in part because Bourdain’s former agent Kim Witherspoon allegedly asked them not to speak with the author. Argento, an Italian actress and Bourdain’s girlfriend at the time of his death, supposedly quoted Oscar Wilde in an email to Leerhsen: “It’s always Judas who writes the biography.” Argento told the Times in an email that she hadn’t read the book, but said she “wrote clearly” to Leerhsen that “he could not publish anything” she said to him.
Through a previously private text exchange between Bourdain and Argento days before his death, the book asserts that his relationship is what pushed him to the edge, according to the Times story. A photograph of Argento dancing with French reporter Hugo Clément in the lobby of Rome’s Hotel de Russie supposedly angered her boyfriend. The two argued over a series of texts and phone calls, the Times story says the book alleges. “You were reckless with my heart. My life,” Bourdain allegedly texted Argento. The actress, sick of his possessiveness, supposedly ended the relationship. “I can’t take this,” she replied.
Leerhsen places Argento and Bourdain’s final back-and-forth at the start of his contentious biography. “Is there anything I can do?” Bourdain wrote. “Stop busting my balls,” Argento replied. “Ok,” he responded. That was the day he died.
Despite the flak received from Bourdain’s friends and family, the forthcoming biography has received mixed reader reviews. “Suicide messes with fans too,” wrote one early reader on Goodreads. “If it’s this hard for us, then it has to be majorly messed up for the family.” Another couldn’t finish the biography. “I stopped reading this half way through,” they wrote. “I didn’t like the direction of this book.” Some readers appreciated the rawness. It “added some background to my understanding” of Bourdain, wrote one reader. Another said the book was “well written and thought provoking.”
Most reflected a deep sense of mourning still felt by fans four years after Bourdain’s death. “I hope you have found peace amongst the stars,” wrote one reader.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, please call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988.
