Down and Out in Paradise
{{Short description|Biography of Anthony Bourdain}}
{{Infobox book
| italic title =
| name = Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain
| image = File:Down and Out in Paradise.jpg
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| caption = First edition
| author = Charles Leerhsen
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| language = English
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| subject = Anthony Bourdain
| genre = Biography
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| publisher = Simon & Schuster
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| english_pub_date = October 11, 2022
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Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain by Charles Leerhsen is a 2022 unauthorized biography of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain.{{cite web|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/dining/anthony-bourdain-biography.html|author=Severson, Kim|authorlink=Kim Severson|date=September 27, 2022|title=The Last, Painful Days of Anthony Bourdain}}{{cite web|work=Los Angeles Times|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-09-29/anthony-bourdain-final-texts-biography-family-response|title=Author responds to family's unrest over controversial new Anthony Bourdain book|author=Saad, Nardine|date=September 29, 2022}}{{cite web|url=https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a41412445/anthony-bourdain-unauthorized-biography-texts/|work=Esquire|title=A New Anthony Bourdain Biography Reveals His Final, Heartbreaking Texts|author=Langmann, Brady|date=September 27, 2022}}{{cite web|url=https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/anthony-bourdain-family-friends-slam-unauthorized-bio-includes-late-celebrity-chef-final-texts|publisher=Fox News|date=September 28, 2022|title=Anthony Bourdain's family and friends slam unauthorized bio that includes late celebrity chef's final texts|author=Wright, Tracy}}{{cite web|work=Today|url=https://www.today.com/food/people/new-book-reveals-details-on-anthony-bourdain-final-hours-rcna49741|title=New book reveals details about Anthony Bourdain's final hours|date=September 28, 2022|author=Kaplan, Anna}}
Critical reception
Slate wrote "A solidly researched and, despite its press, not especially lurid biography, Down and Out in Paradise has a stubborn resistance to psychologizing its subject that—along with the use of such antique terms as "the boob tube" and "red-blooded American male"—gives it a dated air. It reads as if it were written in 1999, the year that Bourdain's life changed as a result of the publication of Don't Eat Before Reading This, the sensational New Yorker article that became the basis for his bestselling book, 2000's Kitchen Confidential."{{cite web|url=https://slate.com/culture/2022/10/anthony-bourdain-biography-down-out-paradise-charles-leerhsen-review.html|work=Slate|title=The Chef Who Became a Brand|author=Miller, Laura|date=October 13, 2022}}
The New York Times said in its review "Down and Out in Paradise is not the most subtle thing you'll ever read. Leerhsen is a former executive editor at Sports Illustrated whose previous books include biographies of Ty Cobb and Butch Cassidy. His Bourdain book goes down like a mass-market rock bio. I'd have loved it if I were 17. The author goes all in on Bourdain's angst, his instinctive distrust of authority, his hero-worship of talented outsiders like Hunter S. Thompson and Iggy Pop and William S. Burroughs."{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/books/review/charles-leerhsen-anthony-bourdain.html|work=The New York Times|title=New Anthony Bourdain Biography: Light on Subtlety, Heavy on Grit|author=Garner, Dwight|date=October 3, 2022}}
The Los Angeles Times wrote "Down and Out is a suicide whodunit framed as a biography; some of the many friends and family who declined to speak with Leerhsen have claimed that much in the book is inaccurate. Still, it reads as a sincere, if single-minded, attempt to look at the actual events of Bourdain's life."{{cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2022-10-03/blonde-marilyn-monroe-movie-anthony-bourdain-book-down-and-out-in-paradise|work=Los Angeles Times|author=McNamra, Mary|date=October 3, 2022|title=Column: 'Blonde' and the new Anthony Bourdain book are suicide whodunits in which the answer is obvious}}
The Guardian wrote "For all its perceptiveness, Down and Out in Paradise is marred by its tendency to constantly tie Bourdain's life to the circumstances of his death: the book returns frequently to the subject, constantly foreshadows it, and closes, somewhat abruptly, with his funeral. That short-changes Bourdain."{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/14/down-and-out-in-paradise-review-a-disservice-to-anthony-bourdain|work=The Guardian|title=Down and Out in Paradise review – a disservice to Anthony Bourdain|author=Conroy, J Oliver|date=October 14, 2022}}