Too High, Too Far, Too Soon

Book excerpt: Too High, Too Far, Too Soon is the humorous, tragic and searingly honest memoir of a man who survived childhood tragedy, Catholic boarding school and chronic drug addiction. Simon Mason graphically details his experience of teenage angst in a tatty seaside town before he ran away to London and then onwards to the crack-infested streets of LA. He recounts his numerous decadent adventures at Glastonbury Festival and the notoriety that came during his stint as personal chemist to the biggest bands of the '90s, before he himself descended into a helpless period of heroin addiction. After several incidents of petty crime stemming from his drug problem, Simon launched numerous failed attempts to become a bona fide rock 'n' roll star and even more failed attempts to get clean, finally being ‘rescued’ by Banksy from a stolen camper van, covered in blood in the Spanish countryside. Too High, Too Far, Too Soon is a rock 'n' roll memoir with a difference, written by a man who lived the life and attained the drug habits of the most extreme rock stars, yet whose attempts to break through to the big time always eluded him.