This is an essay about an autobiography (Laurie Pepper’s ART: Why I Stuck With a Junkie Jazz Man) that is in large part about the creation of another autobiography (Art Pepper’s Straight Life), and I’m going to open with an excerpt from yet another autobiography (my own, title to come): I spent my entire ninth year reading Straight Life. I stole my bebop-fanatic father’s copy because I liked the cover, how Art looked on it — that handsome face, those flashy clothes — and every night I took the book from its hiding place under my mattress. Each page was oh…