NONFICTION - Oct. 27, 1991

WOULDN’T IT BE NICE: My Own Story by Brian Wilson with Todd Gold (HarperCollins: $20; 390 pp.) While most casualties of the ‘60s either destroyed themselves by living dangerously or saved themselves by living more conservatively, Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson floundered in the midst of these two extremes. For an astounding 20 years he was addicted to drugs and alcohol, obese (bloated “like the Goodyear blimp”), schizophrenic and unable to wash himself. Yet he was discouraged from giving up his sleazy habits by drug dealers, “nurses” and others who profited from his dependency.

This account of those years, though often quite compelling, is characterized by the kind of intense self-absorption one finds only in Hollywood. While Wilson offers some self-reproaching portraits of his many temper tantrums, he seems to see nothing self-indulgent in the therapy that finally cured him, even though this involved reserving the entire second-floor lounge of a 747 to fly a team of 15 nurses, psychologists and psychiatrists to a Hawaiian retreat. There, the team begins by reassuring Wilson that shower heads are unlikely to spout “snakes, bullets or acid.”