Finished Mo 7/9/12
I read this over the weekend, and although I am not a fan of this type of music (Lite Rock/Soft Rock/Adult Contemporary), the story of Carly Simon's life made for an entertaining and gossipy read. She is no doubt a child of wealth and privilege, and has led a remarkable 'storybook life'. Her father was the co-founder of Simon and Schuster, she is the friend and lover to numerous super famous men, the ex-wife of James Taylor, and she has written and sung songs that are undeniably part of America's Pop Lexicon.
I enjoyed the book and was a bit dismayed to learn that it is perceived as a hatchet job, and paints an unfair portrait of the singer/song writer. I didn't get that impression at all. In the Forward to the book the author, Stephen Davis, claims that he was a big fan of The Simon Sisters, an early Folk Duo with Carly and her sister, Lucy, and he didn't meet Carly until he went home with a college roommate, and found that this guy's sister (Peter Simon, who later became a noted professional photographer) was "The" Carly Simon. Davis readily admits that his work is an 'unauthorized' biography. However, the book does contains a few factual errors. The author claims that the great Brooklyn Dodger, Duke Snider, was Black! And, apparently there are many more, but this to me seemed the most glaring.
Overall I thought that the Carly Simon portrayed in this book is a sexy, big-hearted, artistically gifted, yet neurotic woman, and it didn't seem like she would have much of a problem with this characterization. But, maybe I'm wrong.
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