Anthony Bourdain biography is a profile of a man spiraling

By MARK KENNEDY
AP Entertainment Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Biographers try as best they can to walk in the shoes of their subjects. Charles Leerhsen has gone further  — he slept in the same room. Leerhsen stayed a night in the French hotel room that chef, writer and TV host Anthony Bourdain killed himself in for “Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain,” out Oct. 11. Seeing what Bourdain saw on his last day alive in 2018 is only part of Leerhsen’s exhaustive research, which included 80 interviews and material from Bourdain’s laptop, diaries and his final texts. The impressionistic portrait that emerges is of a complex man who combined swagger and spikey cool with deep insecurity.