Homeward Bound : The Life of Paul Simon

Inbunden bok. Henry Holt and Co. 2016. 432 sidor.

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A revelatory account of the life of beloved American music icon, Paul Simon, by the bestselling rock biographer Peter Ames Carlin

To have been alive during the last sixty years is to have lived with the music of Paul Simon. The boy from Queens scored his first hit record in 1957, just months after Elvis Presley ignited the rock era. As the songwriting half of Simon & Garfunkel, his work helped define the youth movement of the '60s. On his own in the '70s, Simon made radio-dominating hits. He kicked off the '80s by reuniting with Garfunkel to perform for half a million New Yorkers in Central Park. Five years later, Simon’s album “Graceland” sold millions and spurred an international political controversy. And it doesn’t stop there.

The grandchild of Jewish emigrants from Galicia in the Austro-Hungarian empire, the 75-year-old singer-songwriter has not only sold more than 100 million records, won 15 Grammy awards and been installed into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame twice, but has also animated the meaning―and flexibility―of personal and cultural identity in a rapidly shrinking world.

Simon has also lived one of the most vibrant lives of modern times; a story replete with tales of Carrie Fisher, Leonard Bernstein, Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, Shelley Duvall, Nelson Mandela, drugs, depression, marriage, divorce, and more. A life story with the scope and power of an epic novel, Carlin’s Homeward Bound is the first major biography of one of the most influential popular artists in American history.

"Definitive. Simon’s personal life, drug problems and marriages are intimately detailed, and figures from Bob Dylan to Woody Allen make cameos. Carlin has gone deeper than anyone yet.” (Rolling Stone).

"Respectful, insightful ― and so very damning." (New York Daily News).

“Touching, pure pleasure” (People, Book of the Week).

"You can almost hear the melodic anthems Simon created through Carlin's exhaustively researched, deeply-felt prose." (Harper's Bazaar).

"Thoroughly researched, .Homeward Bound reveals many sides of a complicated, ambitious, insecure figure." (New York Times Book Review).

"The alchemy of pop stardom is a curious process, and few stories are as unlikely and as absorbing as that of the Jewish kid from Queens turned folk superstar. Fresh off 2012’s “Bruce,” his take on another quintessentially American subject, Carlin provides a brisk and engaging overview of Simon’s career and protean musical output. A good story, and Carlin tells it well. Crisp and well-paced, lucid and evocative. Carlin is admirably even-handed when faced with Simon’s sometimes acrid personality.” (The Washington Post).