Book Club Night Kit

Devil On My Shoulder

Alice Cooper with Daniel Richler

Cozy night

Alice Cooper, the man who invented shock rock, sets the stage makeup aside and talks honestly about addiction, faith, family, and the long work of getting well. It is a surprisingly tender memoir hiding inside a famously theatrical life.

Blankets, Cider, and the Man Behind the Makeup

Come read the softest rock memoir on the shelf with us. Comfort food, warm mugs, low lamps, and a very gentle conversation about getting through things.

Reading level: Easy

Best for: A club that likes memoirs with a beating heart, and would rather share stories than dissect chapters

Discussion

Warm-up

1.Before you opened this book, what was your mental picture of Alice Cooper? Share the first image or song that came to mind.
2.Was there a moment early on where you thought, oh, I like this guy more than I expected to? What did it?

Digging in

1.The book lives in the space between Alice the character and the man who takes the makeup off. Which of those two did you find yourself rooting for, and did that feeling surprise you?
2.Memoirs about addiction can feel like a confession or like a conversation. Which did this one feel like to you, and did that make it easier or harder to sit with?
3.He writes from inside a world of tour buses, late nights, and constant noise. What did you find yourself craving on his behalf while reading? Quiet, home, a friend, something else?
4.Faith and family thread through the book quietly rather than loudly. Did that gentleness feel earned to you, and has anything in your own life been held together by something that understated?

Going deep

1.Without giving anything away, there is a point where the tone of the book shifts from surviving to living. When did you feel that turn happening, and what did it stir up in you?
2.He is generous about the people who stayed. If you were writing your own chapter of thanks, who would be in it, and what would you want them to know you noticed?

On the table & to sip

To eat

Phoenix-style green chile cheeseburger sliders

A nod to the Arizona desert he has always called home, served small and messy so nobody has to be polite about it.

Backstage snack board, pretzels, salted nuts, red licorice, cheese cubes, and grapes

A sweet, funny tribute to the rock-and-roll dressing room, scaled down to coffee-table grazing.

Warm skillet apple crisp with vanilla ice cream

The comfort of a kitchen and a family table, which is exactly where the hopeful half of this story lives.

To sip

Hot spiced apple cider with a cinnamon stick (no alcohol)

Nonalcoholic and intentionally so, warm in the hands and a quiet nod to a book about choosing the sober road.

Diner-style bottomless coffee with real cream (no alcohol)

The drink of late nights, long talks, and recovery meetings, and the easiest thing to keep refilling.

A single glass of red wine, poured small

For anyone who wants one, offered without ceremony and with zero pressure, which suits a book about knowing your own limits.