Stars, Cars and Crystal Meth by Jack Sutherland, as told to John Sutherland, book review

A cautionary tale of excess and addiction, told in eye-watering detail to his father

"How's life?" When fathers put this question to sons, the best they're hoping for is colour. They don't expect the truth. The very last thing they dream of is that they should end up like celebrated literary figure John Sutherland, effectively taking dictation as his adopted son Jack, now in his late thirties, recounts, often in such detail that this middle-aged father has to look away, the details of a life and lifestyle involving bipolarity, bad debt, bad company, reckless driving and lots and lots of lovely chemsex.

Jack has had a lot of the latter, 90 per cent of it anonymous. The fact that Sutherland only occasionally uses the footnotes to interpose a wearily raised eyebrow suggests that most of this hasn't come as a complete surprise to him, not only because he had his own battles with addiction, but also because he's a father and deep down not much surprises a father.

When the Sutherlands returned from Dad's academic posting in California, their son Jack, then 18, preferred to stay behind. His main interests by then were flash cars, drugs and going in the bushes of Los Angeles' Griffith Park with men to whom he had not been properly introduced. In order to support himself, he got a job as a runner with the film company Propaganda. This was 1994 when budgets for promo videos were as much as $10m. Like so many before him who had been impossible at school and intractable at home, Jack happily succumbed to the iron discipline of the music business, where the impossible is accomplished every day, providing it is to satisfy the whim of a star.

He got a job as Michael Stipe's personal assistant for the year-long tour following the release of Monster. This was rock 'n' roll touring de luxe, which had its advantages and disadvantages. Each member of R.E.M. had his own bus and there was a world-class masseuse on call but when Jack woke to find his pubic area bustling with wildlife, he had to make his own arrangements. Jack later served at the pleasure of Ru Paul and Mickey Rourke. In each case he maintained the highest professional standards until his impulse to self-destruction and the old chemsex got the better of him. The book starts with him being told "you are the biggest f**k-up I have ever known in my whole life" by Rourke. Who, to be fair, should know.

Between P.A. gigs, he became a star in the highly competitive world of Los Angeles' limo services. These, like the world of gay hook-ups, were being revolutionised by the arrival of the mobile phone and the credit card. Orwell said we should never feel sorry for waiters because they are all snobs who identify with the wealthy diners they fully intend to become.

From Jack's account, which assures us that his passengers could be impossible without ever giving us direct examples, something similar applies to the army of flunkies and air-warmers who make sure that stars never have to touch the pavement of everyday life. I don't believe that Faye Dunaway had a dry ice machine in the back so that when she emerged it was as if from clouds but I am persuaded that the worst tippers were the hip-hop stars who would spent the evening sprinkling twenties over their fellow clubbers.

The way Jack tells it, crystal meth is the drug which makes all the other drugs look as if they are simply not trying. Much of the book is spent detailing how it brought about his downfall, placed him in mortal danger, came between him and his true friends and eventually led him to start again in London, where he has got his own specialist security business and may well be overseeing the door staff when you go out tonight in London.

Having read his adventures with one eye closed, I can only wish him well in his new sobriety. I was rooting for the father who took dictation. In an afterword, John Sutherland says he emerged from the experience liking his son less and loving him just as much. There's no greater love than that.

Faber, £12.99. Order at £10.99 inc. p&p from the Independent Bookshop