Devil in a Coma by Mark Lanegan Review

In March 2021, rocker Mark Lanegan got the ‘vid shortly after moving to Kerry, Ireland, landing himself in hospital for several months as the virus ran roughshod over him. Devil in a Coma recounts the hellish experience, as well as his equally difficult adolescence, and showcases some of his final poems.

I know that most people who are familiar with Lanegan will mention his band Screaming Trees first and foremost but I remember initially encountering him on Queens of the Stone Age’s best record, Songs for the Deaf, where he sang some of the tracks - Hangin’ Tree in particular is really good.

Looking like Jim Morrison’s son with a voice that made Tom Waits sound like a squeaky-voiced teen, it’s been some time since I thought about Mark Lanegan until I heard about his death last year (the cause of death is undisclosed but I’m sure what he went through in 2021 contributed significantly to his early demise). So I saw his book, Devil in a Coma, on the shelf and decided to give his writing a shot - and it’s surprisingly decent. Dude was a gifted writer it turns out.

The writing is clear and the imagery is vivid. Though not a great deal happens to him in the present - he’s basically bed-ridden for months - he takes the reader back through his formative years which makes for a more varied and compelling read. His mother was a harridan of a woman, as was his Welsh grandma, and he was repeatedly in trouble with the law (mostly drugs offences).

He does mention throughout that he deserves the suffering he went through but, considering he doesn’t give specifics, it feels like he’s posturing a bit. Playing the part of the outlaw rock star, I’m such a bad, bad boy, etc. Whoa, Nelly. He talks about his extensive drug use (heroin was a constant monkey on his back) and, hearing about how bad his health had been over the course of his life - this wasn’t his first coma - and his rough general lifestyle, it’s perhaps not surprising to hear that he died relatively young at 57.

About half of this short book is made up of poems. It’s the kind where none of it rhymes and reads more-or-less like prose except
It’s structured
Like this to make
It seem like it’s
Really
Poe
Try.
So if you like that kind of thing, you’ll probably enjoy the book more than I did, but I’m not a fan of this loose pseudo-arty style. Some read like they could’ve been made into great songs though had he lived longer.

Still, I liked the non-poetry of the book which made it worth reading for me. Devil in a Coma is a compelling account of Lanegan’s battle with COVID and it was nice to get to know the guy a little bit. He recorded some great tunes, wrote some interesting things, and that’s more than most can say.