By Steven Carroll
A Life in Parts
Bryan Cranston
Orion, $32.99
I must be one of the few people in the Western world not to see Breaking Bad, but I know the story and Bryan Cranston's own story can be seen as a preparation for a role he seemed destined for. His parents met in acting classes: his father a B-grade actor (The Corpse Grinders) and a boxer, often getting into fights. They divorced; his mother and the children constantly shifting. But acting was in Cranston's blood and he charts his progress from a Mars Bar commercial to Walter White. There's grim stuff in between including a drug-addict girlfriend (in awe of her mother) threatening to have him taken out – she'd previously tried to run him over. Cranston responded, "I'll tell your mother". He writes well, and the writing seems as honest as any writing can be, especially his descriptions of the intensity of making Breaking Bad.