Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I read this book and Pattie Boyd's memoir side-by-side. When I first read Clapton's dazzling love letters to Boyd (printed in her book), I thought wouldn't it be great if Derek and Layla got back together? I soon realized perhaps not. "Cruel and vicious" is how Clapton describes himself upon throwing Boyd out of their house for refusing to sleep with him after she learned his mistress was pregnant. "Cruel and vicious" pretty much sums up this book and the man behind it. Every attractive woman who gets near Clapton goes from inamorata to enemy in a heartbeat. He threatens to become a heroin addict when Boyd refuses to leave her husband, but once he wins her, he berates her. When a supermodel romances Clapton for the express purpose of meeting fellow reprobate Mick Jagger, and the inevitable happens, Clapton is reduced to plotting murder. Every predictable action is met with Clapton's predictably insane reaction. Clapton is attracted mostly to women as ruthless or vapid as he is, guaranteeing disappointment. The prime exception is Boyd, the indisputable love of Clapton's life. Boyd was a compassionate but insecure woman, and she was also married to close friend George Harrison, which is why Clapton wanted her. Clapton resents Boyd for resisting his pleas to run off with him. When she does, he resents her even more because he realizes he's not good enough for her. He demands Boyd join him on his drinking binges and then resents her for that. He resents her for pushing him into rehab. He resents her for being infertile. He resents her most of all when she divorces him and slips out of his control forever. The book's, and Clapton's, nadir, is when he and his equally selfish mistress decide to get pregnant with no regard for what this will do to Boyd's already decimated ego. After the child's tragic death, Clapton resents the mother because she needs comforting and he's touring and is too busy for her. Why am I writing about Clapton's mistreatment of women ad nauseam? Because he does. The woman Clapton thought was his sister was actually his mother (she was only 15 when she got pregnant), therefore, Clapton is determined to punish all females. It's page after page of loathsome confessions from a man who revels in his misdeeds but lacks compassion for the people he's wounded. 37 years after threatening to take heroin if Boyd didn't yield to his demands, Clapton finally admits he was already addicted when he made that ultimatum. He shows no remorse for letting Boyd carry that burden for four long decades. When his ex-fiancee, the fragile Alice Ormsby-Gore, dies from an overdose, Clapton just says it made him realize how lucky he was. He'd gotten Alice hooked on smack when she was 16, but he doesn't lament his role in her fate. Now in his sunset years, Clapton proves his newfound "maturity" by comparison shopping (yes, yet another round of love triangle) for his next bride. Clapton doesn't realize young women wouldn't compete for him in his grizzled middle age if he weren't a wealthy rock star. He may be sober now, but he doesn't act it. It isn't all about women who done him wrong. He also takes cheap shots at his friends, including an unflattering, score-settling story about Harrison that sounds very dubious. Clapton is willing to spend millions on a rehab center to help total strangers, but he can't demonstrate simple decency to the friends and the ex-wife who showed him love and loyalty at his worst moments. Clapton: The Autobiography is confession without contrition. I was going to give this two stars as some parts of the book are actually quite compelling, but this is a memoir, so it's character that counts and Clapton doesn't have any.