Alec Baldwin yields the pen against his own soul

MEMOIR for Congress, mayor or governor of New York and has been merciless in his impersonation of President Trump on “Saturday Night Live,” which he has hosted more times than anyone else. Baldwin has surmounted scandal and heartbreak to find domestic bliss, with his second wife, and a professional rhythm that has put him on-screen with Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep.

And yet Alec Baldwin daydreams about living a different life. He wants to be the proprietor of a stationery store so he can sell “exquisite pens.” He wants to be a lawyer, a club owner, a clockmaker, the warden of a prison and a gallerist in Chelsea. Depends on the day, he writes in his preface. What’s consistent is Baldwin’s dissatisfaction with himself and his life. “Nevertheless” is a blunt object wielded by a man of sharp intellect against his own soul.

“I’m not actually writing this book to discuss my work, my opinions, or my life,” Baldwin says, three pages in, winding up for self-flagellation. “I’m writing it because I was paid to write it.”

He was probably dissatisfied by the pay, too. This rude honesty actually works in the book’s favor. It’s refreshing to read a celebrity memoir that is not painted in pastels and glossed with self-actualization, that does not ride off into the sunset after rewarding projects and hurdled obstacles. “Nevertheless,” because of Baldwin’s aimlessness, is many things: the confession of an Irish Catholic hothead, an appreciation of film and theater by a sincere aesthete, and a 265-page therapy session — wherein the reader becomes an armchair psychoanalyst unable to treat his patient.

The book starts on a promising note, with an evocative first chapter that reads almost like literature.

“I was nine years old and addicted to solitude,” Baldwin writes in the first chapter, after drawing a sketch of his afflicted mother. By the time he describes his grandfather as “a philatelist and a numismatist,” the author’s prickly erudition is in charge, for better or worse, as he scurries along the contours of his life. He compares Jennifer Jason Leigh’s acting style to Paul Muni’s, and Anthony Hopkins’ voice to the French horn solo from Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony. Baldwin’s gripping description of a cocaine overdose during his “Knots Landing” days is a high point (pun intended), and the book provides extensive evidence that fame is less a dream and more a chronic condition. That Baldwin is both enraptured and besieged by his own celebrity is what makes him fascinating and combustible; the book itself is only occasionally so. Instead, it is elegant and petty, sometimes on the same page.

Baldwin’s tortuous relationship with Kim Basinger was a significant part of his life, but it makes for a boring story when spread over dozens of pages. Same with that 2007 episode where Baldwin left his daughter a vicious voice mail that was leaked to the public. By its last third, “Nevertheless” is checking boxes instead of leaping from and around them — which is a shame, because Baldwin is a fierce wit and proven raconteur. The author humbly accepts responsibility for his personal and professional failures but uses far too much ink to taunt and settle scores. His targets include NBC, MSNBC, Harrison Ford, TMZ founder Harvey Levin, New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley, Twitter, paparazzi, the Supreme Court justices John G. Roberts Jr. and Antonin Scalia, the New York Post, Basinger’s legal team, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and, of course, Trump, who has provided Baldwin with a recent booster shot of notoriety.