Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys by Lol Tolhurst
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The last great English rock band."
(Robert Plant about The Cure)

I absolutely love The Cure's music and I am happy I am not the only one. This seminal 1980s band is experiencing a spectacular renaissance in recent years - they are touring all over the world and giving two-to-three-hour concerts that leave thousands and thousands of enthusiastic fans stunned that their music still sounds fresh, that the vocalist's voice has not diminished after all those years, and that The Cure's melodies, rhythms, and instrumentations still make people happy. The band clearly keeps having fun on the stage! Well over 20 full concerts recorded in the recent 6-8 years by The Cure on different continents are available on YouTube. Perhaps what is the most spectacular is the extremely wide range of the age of the audiences: from kids to people pushing 70, like your reviewer. Well, let's not forget that most members of this extraordinary band are in their sixties...

They gave their first gig 43 years ago and, in fact, the only member of the original band who is the current member is the heart, the brain, and the face of the band, Robert Smith, an extraordinary musician, unconventional singer, main composer and writer of lyrics. The book, Cured. The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys (2016) is an autobiography of Lawrence (Lol) Tolhurst, one of the original trio (Smith, Tolhurst, and Dempsey), the "first punks in Crawley," England. Mr. Tolhurst had met Robert Smith in 1964 when they were five and getting on the school bus. The boys became friends, based of common adoration for Jimi Hendrix, and started making music in 1972.

Mr. Tolhurst writes that the summer of 1976 was a pivotal period for the original trio. They were listening to Mahavishnu Orchestra's Birds of Fire and Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica (two of the most favorite albums of mine as well, certainly not "easy listening" but rather jazzy and sort of avant-garde music in the latter case) and experimenting with making music and performing it. Mr. Tolhurst writes:

"It was a beautiful time, without artifice or pretense. We were discovering our art. Life was very simple and pure.

They gave their first concert in the fall of 1976. Since then they went through numerous personnel changes and - more importantly - changes of musical style. From lean and mean post-punk, new wave, gothic rock, through jazz-influenced melodic pop, to "symphonic" rock, the band was always uncategorizable, other than being the epitomes of the "alternative genre" in popular music.

Now about the most fascinating aspect of Mr. Tolhurst's autobiography. Throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s Mr. Tolhurst was a severe, full-blown alcoholic, permanently drunk, on drugs, or both. He stopped contributing to the band's music and became a hindrance to the band's creative efforts and tour performances. He became un unbearable burden to the band and in 1989, while working on their best album, Disintegration, the band fired him. In 1994 Mr. Tolhurst sued the band (technically he sued Mr. Smith and Fiction Records) over lost royalties and over part-ownership of the band's name. He unconditionally lost the lawsuit and the legal fees almost ruined him. And yet... Mr. Tolhurst autobiography is basically a tribute to Robert Smith, the erstwhile legal enemy.

The author pays homage to Robert Smith about whom Mr. Tolhurst writes with deep affection and reverence as about his best friend of 50 years, his musical master, and the genius behind one of the most successful rock bands in the world. During the concert in 2000 at the Palace in Hollywood he apologizes to Robert Smith in person:

"[...] I said, 'I have to make amends to you, Robert, and I'd like to do that now, if you don't mind.'
'Okay,' he said.
I proceeded to pour out my part in what had happened to me and how sorry I was that I had hurt him and The Cure [...]"

A touching moment in a very nice book! (By the way, according to sources, Robert Smith financially recompensed Mr. Tolhurst for his legal fees, after their reconciliation. How's that for a really happy ending!)

There are some weaker, amateurish passages in the autobiography, but they are balanced by some highly readable prose, like, for instance, the fragment about the beauty of nature in Death Valley. It does not matter to me to what extent Mr. Tolhurst used professional help with writing and editing. The depth of his contrition is stunning and makes this autobiography quite unique in its genre.

Three-and-three-quarter stars.


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