Anthony Bourdain biography is a profile of a man spiraling

Biographers try as best they can to walk in the shoes of their subjects. Charles Leerhsen took it a step further: He slept in the same French hotel room where Anthony Bourdain killed himself, earning a unique perspective and pushback.

"There's been some people who've criticized me, saying it's ghoulish or that I'm the kind of reporter who goes through people's garbage cans," Leerhsen, the author of "Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain" told The Associated Press. "But all the best biographers - I wouldn't put myself in their ranks - but all the guys who win the prizes, they believe that you really need to go where the person was."

Seeing what the chef, writer and TV host saw on his last day alive in 2018 is only part of Leerhsen's exhaustive research for the book out this week, which included 80 interviews and material from Bourdain's laptop, diaries and his final texts.

The impressionistic portrait that emerges is of a complex man who combined swagger and spiky cool with deep insecurity, neediness and image-consciousness. Leerhsen calls him "a crash test dummy extraordinaire."

The book traces Bourdain's life from his childhood in Leonia, New Jersey, to dropping out of college, washing dishes in Cape Cod and spending years as a chef in Manhattan, where he built a punk rock persona and becoming addicted to heroin.

"Getting hooked on heroin was the fulfillment of an almost lifelong dream," the author writes.

Bourdain's big break came after a magazine piece was expanded into "Kitchen Confidential," his wickedly funny memoir about the underbelly of the restaurant world. That led to a life as a globetrotting TV raconteur, cut short at 61.

"I was curious about how could the guy who had the best job in...