One Good Reason

Séan McCann is a singer and musician and founding member of Canadian band, Great Big Sea. He left the band at the end of December 2013. Andrea Aragon is his wife and mother of their two children. This book is their story.

Séan was born and raised in St. John's, Newfoundland. He and his family were Catholic and their priest befriended the family when he was in his teens. This same priest sexually abused Séan, which has stayed with him for the rest of his life. Not able to deal with what happened, Séan turned to alcohol and his dependency on it only increased over the years. When he and his friends formed Great Big Sea and their popularity grew, they become known as a party band which encouraged Séan's lifestyle of drinking to excess.

Andrea is an American, the daughter of an alcoholic and had an unstable childhood. After divorcing her first husband, she moved to Colorado to start over and find herself. It was there that she met Séan after a Great Big Sea concert and there was a spark. She eventually moved to Newfoundland to be with him, they got married and had two children. As Séan's alcoholism grew worse, their marriage began to fall apart. She eventually gave him an ultimatum ... quit drinking or she was moving back home to Minneapolis with the kids. Happily he chose his family over liquor. He has since embarked on a solo career and has become a mental health advocate.

I am/was a fan of Great Big Sea and have read band member Alan Doyle's two books so was interested in reading Séan's book. The chapters alternate between Séan and Andrea's stories ... it took me a couple chapters to realize that. If there is a guitar icon at the beginning of the chapter when it's Séan's voice and a heart when it's Andrea's voice. I liked the writing style ... I found it honest. It was interesting to get the two perspectives (Séan's and Andrea's) of the same events.

An honest, moving and sometimes emotional look at addiction specifically alcoholism and how it affects not just the alcoholic but those around them. Told from two separate point of views, it gives an insight in to life as an alcoholic and the life of people close to them.

This was an honest account of life on the road and the struggles that come with fame and excess - especially in a band where the culture and SONGS are about drinking, carousing, and womanizing. As a huge GBS fan, I as dismay at the attitudes from the other bandmates, and wish he had gotten more support. I give Sean a lot of credit not only for the book, but for the immense amount of work he has undertaken to get sober and get his family to a happy and healthy place.

I did not care for the back-and-forth narrative between Sean and his wife Andrea. I was more interested in Sean's story and I felt that it made the writing a little clunky.

Thank you to NetGalley for a free galley copy of this book. Opinions are my own.