Miss Memory Lane: A Memoir

Raw. Brutal. Not A Name-Dropping Hollywood Story. Like so many others, I first “met” Haynes when he showed up on my TV screen as Roy Harper in CW's Arrow. A show which I didn't want to like at first because it came so close to Smallville and Justin Hartley's own excellent portrayal of the same (now titular) character, but whose grit and realism shined through and made me a fan (at least of its earlier seasons). But I never knew too much of the actual Colton Haynes other than knowing that he seemed to be friends with his female cast mates in particular and that he had previously been on the MTV version of Teen Wolf.

And while both of these shows are mentioned here (with more details about Teen Wolf than Arrow, though not a Hollywood-gossip type entry on either of them), the focus of this book is more about Haynes' upbringing, from his earliest memories to his first sexual abuse at age six to his later sexual abuse throughout his teenage years, and his life as all of this was happening. Even when we get into the areas where he came into the public eye, beginning with modeling in New York and LA (after having been scammed in the Midwest), the focus is more inward at himself and his family than showing the various things he was doing as a “celebrity” and with who. (Though he does drop a couple of names through this section.)

As brutal as this book is - this is absolutely one where virtually anyone will want to develop a time machine just to go back and save young Colton - perhaps its saving grace is its brevity at around 250 pages. I wound up reading it over the course of about just 3-4 hours or so, and that speed is largely due to just how beautiful Haynes' prose is. Indeed, there is one section in the penultimate chapter that almost begs to be re-read over and over a few times, as Haynes uses one of his last times utterly drunk as a way to summarize all that he had been through, all that had led him to that particular moment. Truly an outstanding book, and one of the better memoirs - celebrity or not - I've ever read. Very much recommended.