Overview
A warm and surprisingly real-life biography, featuring never-before-seen photos, of one of rockās greatest talents: Prince.
Neal Karlen was the only journalist Prince granted in-depth press interviews to for over a dozen years, from before Purple Rain to when the artist changed his name to an unpronounceable glyph. Karlen interviewed Prince for three Rolling Stone cover stories, wrote ā3 Chains oā Gold,ā Princeās ārock video opera,ā as well as the starās last testament, which may be buried with Princeās will underneath Princeās vast and private compound, Paisley Park.
According to Prince's former fiancĆ©e Susannah Melvoin, Karlen was āthe only reporter who made Prince sound like what he really sounded like.ā Karlen quit writing about Prince a quarter-century before the mega-star died, but he never quit Prince, and the two remained friends for the last thirty-one years of the superstarās life.
Well before they met as writer and subject, Prince and Karlen knew each other as two of the gang of kids who biked around Minneapolisās mostly-segregated Northside. (They played basketball at the Dairy Queen next door to Karlenās grandparents, two blocks from the budding musician.) He asserts that Prince canāt be understood without first understanding ā70s Minneapolis, and that even Princeās best friends knew only 15 percent of him: that was all he was willing and able to give, no matter how much he cared for them.
Going back to Prince Rogers Nelson's roots, especially his contradictory, often tortured, and sometimes violent relationship with his father, This Thing Called Life profoundly changes what we know about Prince, and explains him as no biography has: a superstar who calls in the middle of the night to talk, who loved The Wire and could quote from every episode of The Office, who frequented libraries and jammed spontaneously for local crowds (and fed everyone pancakes afterward), who was lonely but craved being alone. Readers will drive around Minneapolis with Prince in a convertible, talk about movies and music and life, and watch as he tries not to curse, instead dishing a healthy dose of āmamma jammas.ā
This book title, This Thing Called Life (Prince's Odyssey, On and Off the Record), ISBN: 9781250135247, by Neal Karlen, published by St. Martin's Publishing Group (October 6, 2020) is available in hardcover. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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