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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Thursday, March 06, 2008

entry arrow10:22 PM | The Last Days of Heath Ledger


Esquire -- that magazine of endless fascinating literary experimentations -- has just published a controversial piece of reported fiction by Lisa Taddeo titled "The Last Days of Heath Ledger," where she writes diary entries in Heath Ledger's voice about his, well, last days. I read it for its gimmicky, possibly exploitative, value -- but got blown away by the power of Taddeo's fiction. Here's how the story, which you can read in full here, begins:

It becomes theatrically important, after you die, what your last few days are like.

For me, it was just like any other weekend in my life. I didn't eat a last meal, I didn't jerk off any more or any less, I didn't climb a mountain or end up swinging from a noose with Mozart's Requiem in the background. But suddenly it's important exactly what I did, because they are the last few days, and what you do in the last few days, down to your last lunch, becomes a fairy tale.

If you force me to make my last weekend a microcosm of my existence, and what my existence means to you, then I'll tell you how it went and who I played. But first things first: It was an accident. I'm not some fucked-up star who couldn't deal. I could deal; I just couldn't sleep.

This is the type of fiction I seem to be digging these days, starting when I read Justine Yu's "Sweet Baby" a few months ago, and continuing on with my re-viewing of Gus Van Sant's double-bill of minimalist angst -- Elephant and Last Days. This is fiction that is precise and unvarnished slices of lives, told without bullshit, and with the self-aware poetry, momentum, and flavor of a day dripping with caffeine.

The New York Times has a story on the publication here.

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