Fall to Pieces

September 28, 2009
Weiland's lively, vernacular memoir tells the sadly wasted but ultimately self-directed tale of her meteoric rise as a model from impoverished, half-Mexican roots to a precipitous plunge into drug addiction. Growing up in a broken Southern California home in the 1980s, where she lived mostly with her working Mexican mother in near poverty, the author, née Forsberg, found autonomy and financial independence early on in modeling; by age 14 she was a finalist for a Seventeen
magazine modeling contest and traveling to New York; by 16, she had quit school, been legally “emancipated” and booked overseas jobs. She also became infatuated with aspiring rock and roller Scott Weiland, who was briefly her driver, and as he became hugely successful with his band, Stone Temple Pilots, he slid into heroin addiction and dragged her along with him. He was also involved with another woman, and the author's account is a painful re-enactment of her youthful abasement. From partying scene to junkie desperation to psychiatrist's office, jail and rehab, Forsberg Weiland battled her demons, learning with some surprise that she suffered from bipolar disorder. Having two children with Scott turned her around, though her marriage crumbled when he didn't change. Weiland's forthright, resilient can-do spirit injects this sad story with a healthy moral.