Now you are probably thinking, oh yeah, this is a book I want to read... not. It’s the everything in-between, really reading between the lines, that makes this book what it is, which is not a hatchet job or an vengeful tell-all. It is a straight up view of what it is like to love and live with someone who has a serious mental illness. A person who self medicates and eventually dies from an overdose.
If you are a Ramones fan, it’s a no brainer. Into punk rock? Poisoned Heart is a must read. This is the type of book that has never been written about the band before. Vera is the only woman in the Ramones’ circle to put pen to paper regarding Dee Dee or any of them. Just the fact that it does not rely on interviews with anyone gives it a different perspective. Many of the photographs are from Vera’s own collection just as she used her own personal diaries and notebooks from throughout the years to put the book together.
These things gave her an insider's look into New York punk that began in the late 1970s. Many bands from that era and area would do gigs together at places like the infamous CBGBs and Max's Kansas City. Blondie, Talking Heads, Television and Patti Smith are just a few of the other bands that came from that scene. Poisoned Heart is Vera's way of keeping Dee Dee's musical legacy alive.
Vera told me that, from all the pre-release interviews she has done, it seems as if everyone has drawn something different from her book. It’s as if people seem to relate to it on various levels, depending on their point of view. The fact that both men and women seem to identify with it on their own very personal level has caught her by pleasant surprise.
I dove into the book, thinking that it would be a cool bio to add to my Rock library, fueled in part by the fact that I have always admired the Ramones. The more I read it, I got a clearer picture of Vera than of Dee Dee. But that is not a bad thing. I see her as a very strong woman. Chapter Ten, "My Main Man," in particular is a good example of that... knowing that love wasn't enough, as powerful as it can be. And as the rest of the book goes on, Vera gains in strength and trusts in herself to do what she needed to do.
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