Charlie Kirk’s assassination evoked some of the worst behavior from a host of Hollywood celebrities. However, Charlie Sheen demonstrated a depth of humanity and a palpable humility in the face of an overawing circumstance that many chose as a moment to demagogue.
Charlie and Joe Rogan were recording an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience when Charlie Kirk’s vicious murder was livestreamed via social media. It was a visceral moment for anyone who watched the efficient brutality of lead impacting flesh and bone at supersonic speeds.
Moments like these, when the psyche collides with the kinetic reality of evil, produces revelations about the personalities battered by the shockwaves. Pretense is shattered, and the actual creature emerges — if only for a moment.
In that moment, Charlie Sheen transcended politics and revealed something fundamental about himself. He is not a construct of the left, a virtue-signaling automaton who reflexes and gesticulates in accordance with Hollywood expectations. He is a thinking man and possesses the rare courage required to risk fresh floggings for old transgressions in order to remain true to his ethos.
That quality is what makes his debut work, The Book of Sheen, something special.
Sheen’s book is raw, powerful, grand, and in every line terrifyingly human. This isn’t a self-congratulatory excursion into a slough of narcissism. This book didn’t come cheap to Charlie, scribbled out by a ghostwriting drone. He did the hard work with literary hammer and chisel, creating a unique expression in the sculptured prose of a soul made manifest.
Charlie told Townhall, “It felt counterfeit [using a ghostwriter] and I would have regretted it forever.” He said he wanted to “claw through the doubt, because there’s so much doubt that creeps in this process.”
Sheen allows you to see all the critical moments in his life, which led him back to what is most precious in this world — family and a recognition of his own humanity in the light of inevitable consequence. This is a hard look at hard things.
Charlie told Townhall, “I would love to write again. I’ve found it to be the most challenging and isolating job I’ve ever had.”
The Book of Sheen is also a record of how the synchronistic moments of life are really where experience and Providence intersect.
Though much of the book is about the heavy realities of substance abuse, the telling is easy and raucous. The Book of Sheen reads like a thriller — and not just because Sheen played significant roles in Red Dawn, Platoon, Navy SEALS, or spent months of his childhood in the threatening jungles of the Philippines.
When most boys his age were riding Big Wheels in the driveway, he was cavorting amongst decapitated human heads or limbs torn and blown apart by VC landmines — the macabre artifacts of special effects wizards.
The smell of napalm in the morning became the pungent reminisce of his childhood. He breathed the same laden, tepid air — a dank steam in the waking dawn — as film legend Robert Duvall breathed the line that became a cultural touchstone.
He bore witness to the paternal humor of the icon Marlon Brando. It staggers the mind to consider the dynamic, even pyrotechnic effect of accreting so much talent in such proximity. Martin Sheen, Frederic Forests, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper, Harrison Ford, and R. Lee Ermey, among others, were the company of Charlie’s youth.
Sheen has harnessed the elemental magic that materializes in honest writing, also imbued with the powers of The Nine Sisters. Sheen has tuned his ear to hear the whispers of Calliope, Clio, Melpomene, and Thalia. Most authors are fortunate to have the mercurial benefaction of just one of the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne.
Of far more importance than the mere mechanics or mythology of talent is the unconscious yet profound analogue found in Biblical literature. Sheen chronicles his life in all its dizzying and apparent coincidences with thoughtful detail and classic panache. The crafted sentences, paragraphs, and chapters propel you forward effortlessly.
Because Charlie tells the truth, his narrative reverberates like a tuning fork to the truth of the Biblical character — Solomon. As the wisest mere mortal to have ever walked the earth, he set out to plumb the depths of all things pleasurable. He used his vast wealth, power, and knowledge to try and suss out the meaning of life as it is lived “under the sun.” His philosophical investigations and empirical exploits produced the book of Ecclesiastes — “the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.” (Ec 1:8) Solomon discovered that life is hollow and empty apart from a personal relationship with the Creator.
In his Epilogue, Sheen says, “I’m doing pretty good these days. I made it home and stayed there, I wear a Timex and drive a Cadillac…” Sheen told Townhall, “It’s all true. I do wear a Timex. I do drive a Cadillac…a return to the basics…I’m very…red, white, and blue at my core, and not ashamed to honor that.”
One of the most profound things Sheen says in this memoir is about a moment of clarity brought about by his daughter, Sam. Charlie decided it was time to start “doing.” Being present and reliable for his children. Sheen declares, “Sam wasn’t my final straw; she was my first harvest.”
The Book of Sheen is as much an ode to his father as it is a revelation about Charlie. A fundamental aspect of Martin Sheen’s mentorship of his son revolved around the concept of “no matter what.” Show up, be there, don’t quit…no matter what.
I didn’t expect this book to speak to me, but it did. Having said that, I can’t give a better recommendation. This isn’t just another exercise in celebrity hubris. There is gold, and there is gold everywhere in Charlie’s fertile pages. Pick up this book, turn the pages, and mine the kingly metal.
Find the long form, 45-minute interview with Charlie Sheen here.
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