A Fine Line Between Clever and Stupid by Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer – A Book Review

It’s been a big year for all things Spinal Tap. On top of releasing a long-awaited sequel, the creators also re-released the original film, remixed and remastered. Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer have written a book about their experiences around the film. “A Fine Line Between Clever and Stupid: The Story of Spinal Tap” documents the behind-the-scenes journey it took to birth not only a cult classic film, but a genre.

Rob Reiner narrates most of the book, taking the real-life reins from his fictional Marty Di Bergi. Guest, McKean, and Shearer read their own blurbs for the most part. We get a brief idea of where each of their careers were at before Spinal Tap and how their friendship bloomed. Also, one unlikely link in comedy actually helped bring the group together. We learn that McKean and Guest were both proficient musicians and could have gone on to a career in either comedy or music.

Behind the Scenes

For you behind-the-scenes nerds, this book is chock-full of production stories, and the struggle to bring This is Spinal Tap to the big screen. We get some inside baseball as to how the group wrote the movie, and pitched it, given its improvisational nature. For a movie that’s famously spontaneous with its scene compositions, the road to This is Spinal Tap was full of plot points and references.

There is a chapter that gives details about each song in the movie and how Guest and McKean wrote them. Nothing kills a joke more than explaining it, and you would think lifting the veil on the small intricacies of what makes Spinal Tap special could kill that. Yet, this book made me want to go back and watch both movies again to find these. For as genius as their comedy is, McKean and Guest’s music is just as smart.

Yet, some of this stuff is not new. The book does overlap with a previously released Criterion Collection edition of the movie, which was pretty extensive. If you’ve followed the career of Spinal Tap’s creators, you know they’ve all gone on to do great things . What is new are the stories from celebrities going over their own Tap Moments and reminiscing about the film.

New Content

Slash from Guns N’ Roses, Rob Halford from Judas Priest, and Aimee Mann talk about how, even after seeing the film, life on the road imitates Tap. There are instances where some of the plot points or references from the movie predicted things that would eventually happen in the music industry. This Is Spinal Tap is just as prophetic as The Simpsons in some of these cases.

One of the highlights of this book is that it’s actually two books in one. Once finished with A Fine Line Between Clever and Stupid, you can flip it around and read the oral history of England’s Loudest Band, appropriately named Smell The Book. If you like reading an improv session with four of the best to do it, this is a real treat and is as irreverent as anything that has come before.

If you listen to the audio version, it is Marti Di Bergi going over the history of Spinal Tap with all of the core members in character.  While this part rehashes a couple of jokes from the movie, the real gold, as always, is in the content. The genius thing is that they are reminiscing about a made-up past. They can be a little vague about a premise while someone else runs with what they have thrown out.

This goes to 11.

Despite the low page count, there’s a lot packed into A Fine Line Between Clever and Stupid. It’s everything a Spinal Tap needs to be: concise, funny, and light. You could easily get through this in a day or two. I would recommend the audio version for the last ninety minutes of Smell the Book alone. If this is the last we’ve heard from Spinal Tap, they are going out on a high note. A Fine Line Between Clever and Stupid is available through Simon and Schuster.

Please see Forrest’s Review of Spinal Tap II: The End Continues here.

For more from the Nerd Initiative Book Club, CLICK HERE.

Have you checked out this book? Let us know your thoughts.