I don’t know what you do with your friends, but I argue about arcane Twin Peaks history with mine. Yes, I know everyone is wondering about “How’s Annie?” or “What year is this?” or “Who’s the dreamer?” Those answers are easy: Dead, 2014 and Cooper. The harder questions are the ones that we need our memories to answer. The most recent one (so that makes it the most important one) is what day was The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes released?
The internet doesn’t really help on this one. There are websites that say May 1991 or April 1991. Wrapped In Plastic magazine has an article about it in Issue #23, and they list it as April, but no date.
One of The Blue Rose’s Twitter followers said the book came out on May 1st (which was a Wednesday) but Twin Peaks wasn’t airing in May. It was on ANOTHER hiatus. (What was ABC going to do, play the amazing Episode 29 during a sweeps month? Never. Why would they want to air one of the most artistic hours of television ever during sweeps? If they had scheduled Season 3, they would have played Part 8 at 2 AM on a Wednesday. Some grudges I’ll keep for life.)
I want to know the exact date. We know the book had to be released on a Tuesday because that is when books were released back in 1991. So when did it get released?
The month of May just doesn’t feel right to me because I have a memory of reading it while Twin Peaks was airing. I remember specifically thinking because I had read the book, I was more afraid of Windom Earle in those episodes. (But I also have to admit that I could have had this thought when I saw Episode 29, [which aired in June] when we saw Caroline and Cooper laying on the floor together. That scene is directly from the book. {Ok, now I just had a new thought. Does this mean Lynch acknowledged the book? He staged it like it was written in the My Life, My Tapes. Man, he’s changed over the years. If he did that scene today, he would have Caroline be strangled by a rope and say, “I don’t care what was in the Cooper book.” We have fun, don’t we?})
That was when I remembered something very specific. I pictured an article from The USA Today written by TV Critic and Twin Peaks supporter Matt Roush. I was pretty sure that there was a review of the book alongside a picture of Cooper playing chess. But that was in the newspaper in 1991. How could I check that? I would have had to have saved that paper for 28 years and know exactly where I kept it to prove that. Good thing I am a crazy man because I have still have it. (Pictured below)
This article was printed the day Episode 24 aired. (I’ll be damned if I ever use the word titles for the episodes.) Roush has several articles about the return of the show after its six week hiatus. It has a review of Episode 24, a recap of what is going on with the plot of the show, and a review of My Life, My Tapes.
So this article proves that May is not a viable release date. No newspaper would print a review for a book in March that comes out in May. Plus, in the article Roush writes: This “autobiography,” in stores next week, (emphasis added) is by Peaks co-creator Mark Frost’s brother, Scott.” Knowing books comes out on Tuesdays, I submit that the book was released (in the United States) on April 2, 1991. This would jive with my memory that I was reading it while episodes aired. Episodes 25-27 aired for the first 3 weeks in April before ABC pulled the series till June.
I am going on record as mystery solved. (Hey, is this the first mystery ever solved in Twin Peaks? I guess Cooper did actually figure out Josie shot him, but come on, he never really got a handle on her confession. [I love telling Twin Peaks jokes.])
My question for you is can anyone out there prove me wrong? Come on, this is your favorite thing to do, internet. I am asking you to say I am wrong. It is your chance to get me. Ready. Set. Go!
Scott Ryan is the Managing editor of The Blue Rose Magazine. Subscribe for more coverage of Twin Peaks and David Lynch. Order the new book about Moonlighting.Order the new book about the work of David Lynch
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