Room To Dream is the closest you’re going to get to a Mr David Lynch memoir.

There are few filmmakers more enigmatic than Mr David Lynch. Indeed, the word “Lynchian” is often used in reference to his unique sense of unlocking the cryptic similarities between the macabre, the mundane and the absurd. Like the man himself, these are not appreciated by everybody. The cool esotericism that his work, such as Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, oozes means Mr Lynch has amassed a cult following that spans generations, yet he remains a bit of a mystery. There is some good news for his fans, though, because Mr Lynch has just published Room To Dream, which is as close to a memoir as we’ll likely get.

Co-written with Ms Kristine McKenna, the book is different from traditional memoirs. Its chapters are split into biographical accounts of Mr Lynch’s life written by Ms McKenna – including interviews with key figures who know, or knew, him well – followed by autobiographical first-person accounts by Mr Lynch himself. “What you’re reading here is basically a person having a conversation with his own biography,” writes Ms McKenna in the introduction. The book spans Mr Lynch’s bucolic upbringing, turbulent love life and successes and struggles, and gives a comprehensive insight into the notoriously private filmmaker’s life. Below, we pick out some of the things we’ve learnt about him.

HE WAS A LADIES’ MAN FROM AN EARLY AGE

Mr Lynch is charismatic, rather good looking and has a mysterious, brooding air about him. He’s also been married four times, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to learn that he was also a big hit with the girls growing up. His sister recalls that he was never without a girlfriend, and that when he was in junior high school he told her that he kissed every single girl on a hayride with his seventh-grade class.

HE WORE SNEAKERS WITH A SUIT BEFORE IT WAS COOL

When he was in school in Alexandria, Mr Lynch ran for school treasurer and in the assembly where the candidates appealed to the audience, he wore a seersucker suit with tennis shoes. Mr Lynch was certainly ahead of his time. Style-conscious men are only just catching on to suits and sneakers, decades later.

MEDITATION CHANGED HIS LIFE

If you’re a Mr Lynch fan, you’ll probably know that he is big on meditation. After discovering it in 1973 while he was filming Eraserhead, he says it changed the way he saw himself and made him much more self-assured. He also credits meditation with giving him the inspiration to write Mulholland Drive. He dedicates the book to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, an Indian guru known for working with the Beatles and who was a big influence on Mr Lynch.

HE WAS A bit of A FASHION DESIGNER IN HIS YOUTH

Mr Lynch had a talent for drawing from an early age. Combining his entrepreneurial and illustration skills, he made T-shirts for other kids in the neighbourhood, and everybody bought one. “He wasn’t one of the boys buying a T-shirt with an irreverent drawing on it. He was the boy who was making them,” recalls an old friend. If anyone still has one, it’s probably worth a fortune now. If you don’t, Mr Lynch has recently started designing T-shirts again, this time for Amazon.

HE HUNTED PORCUPINES AS A KID

Mr Lynch’s upbringing was idyllic, but it included a fair bit of gore. He hunted porcupine with his father, who also took him out to shoot chipmunks. Once, he and his friends tried to burst a dead bloated cow with a pick axe. Ah, to grow up in the countryside.

HE’S ENTIRELY UNFAZED BY THE SUCCESS OF TWIN PEAKS

Twin Peaks is probably Mr Lynch’s best-known work and it made his name, but he says its massive success “didn’t mean anything”. Instead, he muses on how failure isn’t a bad thing because there’s still somewhere to climb, but with success you start to worry about falling, and there’s little stability. He is thankful for his success, but says the most important thing isn’t doing well or not, it’s about the work.

Room To Dream: A Life In Art by Mr David Lynch and Ms Kristine McKenna (Canongate) is published today

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