Book 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.' '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 By Marianne Faithfull
