SF Gate - Peter Coyote

Unlike historians who work with facts and records, memoirists deal with feelings and emotions refracted through the prism of the personal and the subjective.

Peter Coyote’s second memoir, “The Rainman’s Third Cure,” begins with his own recollections of childhood and culminates in the present with a glimpse of “the future vast and free.” The narrative explores the author’s “irregular education,” as he call it, and the roller-coaster, cross-continental, trans-Atlantic journeys that have taken him over the past seven decades from bar mitzvah boy to Zen Buddhist priest, from the ’60s counterculture to the movie industry and from a kind of frenetic existence to an inner calm that comes from sitting and meditating.

Born in New York in 1941 to Ruth and Morris Cohon — first-generation Americans — and now deeply rooted in Marin County, Coyote has adopted, recycled and discarded more lives than the proverbial cat with nine lives. To signify his ’60s self, he took the last name Coyote in 1968. He hasn’t retired it since.

An angry young man, an orphan of sorts (he did nearly everything he could to blot out his parents), a college student, an acclaimed actor, an “alpha wolf,” a “shade-tree mechanic,” a marijuana smoker (who was arrested and jailed), a druggie (he says he used heroin, speed, peyote and LSD) and a bohemian, he reached his political apotheosis as a mainstay of the Diggers, the San Francisco anarchist group that fed the hungry, housed wayfarers and created nonconformist institutions in the heart of the American empire. Last but not least, Coyote is a survivor who has beaten all kinds of devils and diseases, including hepatitis C.

Perhaps best known as the narrator of many documentaries, among them Ken Burns’ “The Roosevelts,” Coyote has emerged, over the past few decades, as the unofficial yet authentic voice of America. His own personal voice echoes across every page of his memoir. It also speaks for the lost, the lonely, the doomed and the redeemed. Why Coyote says nothing about his work with Burns isn’t clear; perhaps he’s saving it for another book, or doesn’t think it’s essential.

“The Rainman’s Third Cure” — the title comes from a Bob Dylan song — races along at breakneck speed. At one point, Coyote simply lists the names of actresses with whom he has shared screen credit, including Bette Midler, Greta Scacchi and Sharon Stone. He might have provided at least a glimpse or two of Stone. He might also have jettisoned the habit of referring readers to his first memoir, “Sleeping Where I Fall.” Those references break the narrative flow.

The two memoirs overlap, though “The Rainman’s Third Cure” also uncovers new material and offers intriguing portraits of Gary Snyder, Roman Polanski and Coyote’s wives and lovers, whose privacy he respects by using pseudonyms.

Probably the most painful parts of the book are the early parts, which depict the author’s violent father and distressed mother, who told him in no uncertain terms that, like her, he was a “loser.”

Still, “The Rainman’s Third Cure” isn’t meant to be a psychological history. As a memoir of one man’s adventures, it’s appealing because it shows what happened to a generation caught up in sex, drugs and political protest, and who dreamed the dream of the utopian ’60s.

Readers will probably come to this book for the personal revelations and the behind-the-scenes look at famous people such as Polanski. They’ll linger for the memorable language that shows that Coyote is indeed a fine writer. “The feral dog I’d placated by feeding it gobbets of my psyche for years had received no nourishment in a week and was dangerously angry,” he writes about two-thirds of the way through the story and at one of its pivotal moments.

The stellar cover photo of Coyote by the famed Bay Area photographer Chris Felver suggests the anguish beneath the author’s handsome exterior. The archival photos of Coyote’s parents, father figures, mentors and friends bring them to life, enhance the prose and help make this memoir unforgettable. For Father’s Day, or any other day of the year, it’s a most suitable gift.

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