Product Description

This book is a more personal history than has ever before been written by or about Marianne Faithfull. Anecdotal, conversational, intimate and revealing, this is her no-holds-barred account of her life, her friends, her triumphs and mistakes. A decade after the publication of 'Faithfull', one of the most acclaimed rock autobiographies of all time, Marianne Faithfull is back, vowing periodically leave her wicked ways behind and grow up, but finding that somehow strange things keep happening. A wry observer of her slightly off-kilter world, Marianne muses nostalgically about afternoons languishing on Moroccan cushions at George and Pattie's, getting high and listening to new songs. She fondly recalls the outlandish antics of her Beat friends Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs; is frequently baffled at her image in the press (opening the paper to read of her own demise: 'Sixties Star in Death Plunge'); terrified by the curse sent by Kenneth Anger; mortified by her history of reckless behaviour; not to mention her near-death experience in Singapore while looking for an opium den. Marianne peoples her anecdotal memoir with legendary characters one can imagine only Marianne assembling around her, both the eccentric and the beautiful, from Henrietta Moraes and Donatella Versace to Sofia Coppola, Juliette Greco, and Yves St. Laurent's dog. Here is Marianne on the dark side of the sixties and the bright side of the nineties, which saw her collaborating with the likes of Blur and Jarvis Cocker; compelling recollections of an unconventional childhood in her father's orgiastic literary commune to a hilariously decadent few days at Lady Caroline Blackwood's deathbed. Here she is her blossoming movie career, on her records as subliminal autobiography. This is as intimate a portrait as we've ever had of Marianne, as she meditates on sex and drugs, confronts her alter-ego, the Fabulous Beast, and faces her own mortality in her battle with breast cancer. Since her last book Marianne has, in her own words, 'made quite a few records, gone on many tours, tried to play it straight, and! Well, the rest is the subject of this book.'

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43159 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
'A rare talent for lyrical, inventive prose gives her anecdotes wings!.a powerful, radical and quite beautiful work of biographical art.' Sunday Telegraph 'She opens up a box of mini-memoirs about the characters she has met. Instantly engaging. Faithfull is able to produce something of grit and newsworthiness.' Observer

Time Out
'Amusing close encounters in the '70's with Burroughs, Ginsberg and Corso at the Jack Kerouac School of disembodied Poetics...funny...poignant.'

About the Author
By Marianne Faithfull

Customer Reviews

Memoirs from a survivor
As the title indicates this is a much more fragmented biography than "Faithfull: An autobiography " from 1994, but again David Dalton appears as a co-writer of the book.
It consists of memories from the fab 60'es, when Marianne was the queen of swinging London, but also from the less fab 70'es where she had fallen from grace and lived as a junkie in Soho.

It also consists of portraits of other celebrities and friends: Kenneth Anger (the filmmaker), Caroline Blackwood (the writer) just to name a few and personal reflections on her own life from childhood up till now. She tells openly of her private life: the collapse on stage in Milan in 2005, which meant that she had to cancel the rest of her tour, her fight against breast cancer, the weight problems, giving up smoking etc., but also about her professional life as an acclaimed artist (singer, performer and actress).

What I loved the most about the book was some of its more humorous episodes, e.g. when we are told, that she is not actually riding a motor bike, but sits on a trolley with a wind machine in "Girl on a Motorcycle" (what a disappointment!). Although she has some reservations about the film, she is pleased that she made it, because:" it preserved her in aspic at one of the periods when she looked really good." I agree, but I also think she looks fabulous today - what a charisma - I saw her on her last tour in Copenhagen in May 2007. I also loved the more intimate episodes, e.g. the very loving portrait of her mother Eva and a rather critical portrait of the Beat Poets: Allan Ginsburg, William Burroughs, etc.
As a bonus you get some nice photos of Marianne herself, her grandparents and some of the friends, but none of her beloved Francois Ravard to whom the book is dedicated - I wonder why?

The perfect weekend guest?
I bought this book on Saturday morning & had finished it by Sunday afternoon- a quick, coversational read, very much like having Marianne stay over for the weekend (purely platonic, old sport) and listening to her hold court in yer front room as she lets slip secrets from the Top Table circa 1967-1969, her time spent on a 70s Soho wall and her various other dealings with Beats, beak and freaks. Absorbing and intimate, the book eschews the narrative approach of her earlier biog and goes for the more abstract, rambling flights of fancy one recognises from late nights staying up talking, drinking red wine & smoking too many cigarettes. In this format however, there are no red rings on the coffee table, overflowing ashtrays, lost voices or Marianne-inspired breakages the next morning. If you enjoyed the first one, give this a go. She's the perfect weekend guest.

Thought-provoking, amusing & entertaining
This riveting sequel to 1994's Faithfull is less formal and detailed, a series of vignettes of people, places, movies, plays & music rather than a structured narrative. The first chapter deals with some unexpected, funny and frightening reactions to the first book. Along the way, her observations serve as a captivating history of popular culture since the 1960s. Yes, there are flashbacks; Marianne revisits her family background, childhood impressions and many interesting personalities and scenarios from the 60s and beyond. Currently out of print, Marianne Faithfull: As Tears Go By is an absorbing biography by Mark Hodkinson that charts Marianne's life and career up to 1991.

She writes with candor about her long relationship with drugs but the most arresting parts are those in which she affectionately remembers friends and acquaintances, living and departed, like the author Caroline Blackwood (who was briefly married to the confessional poet Robert Lowell), Henrietta Moraes, Roman Polanski and the legendary Beat writers William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso. Fans of her music will love the three chapters devoted to the recording of specific albums: Vagabond Ways of 1999, Kissin' Time of 2002 and Before the Poison, released in 2004.

The most absorbing flashbacks to the 1960s include reminiscences of the young Beatles, Stones, Brian Epstein, Andrew Oldham, Joe Orton and albums like Revolver, Sgt Pepper, Pet Sounds, Ram & Tea for the Tillerman. She shares with Bob Dylan an ambivalence towards the sixties, claiming that 1950s bohemia was more authentic with e.g. the Beats and the decade's jazz masterpieces, so unlike the mass bohemia of the next decade which resulted in much tragedy and wretched excess. Yes, and rock `n roll was born although she doesn't mention the phenomenon.

The chapter My Life as a Magpie is a brief filmography; Marianne performed in films & TV series like Absolutely Fabulous, The Black Rider, Marie Antoinette, Irina Palm, Moondance, Shopping, Intimacy, Paris je t'aime, Lucifer Rising and Girl on a Motorcycle amongst others. One of the most enjoyable features of the book is her knowledge of and appreciation of art & literature. The text is enhanced by references to Blake, Francis Bacon, Boccaccio, Brecht, Cocteau, Dante, Flaubert, Lucian Freud, Horace, Keats, Kerouac, Lowell, Maimonides, Marlowe, Murdoch, Petrarch, Pope, Rimbaud, Sartre, Shelley, Verlaine and Welles, to mention a few.

Less famous authors, actors and directors that she appreciates plus books & movies that she finds noteworthy are introduced with interesting anecdotes or brief descriptions. These include Juliette Greco, Mick Brown, Frank Wedekind, Roberto Calasso, Philip Pullman, John Cooper Powys, Pretty Baby, Les Enfants du Paradis, Innocence, The Third Man and Manon des Sources. The chapter on Decadence with reference to Huysmans' "A Rebours" made me laugh out loud due to its subversive view of nature as measured against the Zeitgeist. The protagonist finds the artificial more appealing than the organic, praising two steam locomotives whilst dismissing nature's `disgusting sameness.' Another heresy is Marianne's rejection of the artist's self-destructive Romantic urge as infantile.

Two sets of plates, one at the beginning and another in the middle, contain 29 full-color and black & white photographs; the book concludes with an index. Although the aforementioned autobiography titled Faithfull is informative and entertaining, the spontaneity of this sequel makes it the more appealing of the two. In Marianne, the wisdom of age emerges hand-in-hand with the most delightful humor. I enjoyed this sparkling read; it is as amusing as the James Young biography of Nico, Nico, Songs They Never Play on the Radio, but significantly more thought-provoking.