Description

‘The only Lou Reed bio you need to read’ The Washington Post
One of Pitchfork’s ten best music books of 2023 | A Kirkus Reviews best nonfiction book of 2023

‘A monumental work filled with first-person accounts of the master’s life and a dizzying array of never-before heard details’ Michael Imperioli, author of The Perfume Burned His Eyes

The most complete and penetrating biography of the rock master, whose stature grows every year.

Since his death ten years ago, Lou Reed’s living presence has only grown. The great rock-poet presided over the marriage of Brill Building pop and the European avant-garde, and left American culture transfigured. In Lou Reed: The King of New York, Will Hermes offers the definitive narrative of Reed’s life and legacy, dramatizing his long, brilliant, and contentious dialogue with fans, critics, fellow artists, and assorted habitues of the demimonde. We witness Reed’s complex partnerships with David Bowie, Andy Warhol, John Cale, and Laurie Anderson; track the deadpan wit, street-smart edge, and poetic flights that defined his craft as a singer and songwriter with the Velvet Underground and beyond; and explore the artistic ambition and gift for self-sabotage he took from his mentor Delmore Schwartz.

As Hermes follows Reed from Lower East Side cold-water flats to the landmark status he later achieved, he also tells the story of New York City as a cultural capital. The first biographer to draw on the New York Public Library’s much-publicized Reed archive, Hermes employs the library collections, the release of previously unheard recordings, and a wealth of recent interviews to give us a new Lou Reed-a pioneer in living and writing about nonbinary sexuality and gender identity, a committed artist who pursued beauty and noise with equal fervor, and a turbulent and sometimes truculent man whose emotional imprint endures.

Publisher Review

Meticulous yet vivid . . . Hermes expertly conjures the difference scenes Reed inhabited, placing him amid a rich cast of collaborators, friends and lovers * Guardian * A sympathetic portrait of a vastly talented but difficult man * Mojo * No matter how well you know the man and his music, there’s so much more to him that’s never been revealed until now. This book has the menace and allure of Reed’s finest work * Rolling Stone * Plenty has been written about Reed, but only Hermes, to my mind, has gotten Reed’s peculiar balance, of person and poseur, exactly right . . . This biography is as beautifully researched as it is written * The Washington Post * Fans will likely devour many of these stories and want to live inside of them * The Atlantic * Through his all-encompassing focus on Lou, Will Hermes serves up a big slice of late 20th-century New York art history. This is an extraordinary achievement. — Michael Imperioli, author of THE PERFUME BURNED HIS EYES There have been many biographies of Lou Reed, but Will Hermes has written the definitive life. He has probed into every corner, talked to people the others overlooked, dug up every last clipping and tape, but above all he has brought to the assignment a sharp eye, a clear head, a lucid prose style, and a determination to let Lou be Lou, without judgement — Lucy Sante, author of LOW LIFE Can literature change your life? Yes … along came Will Hermes, who cost me several hundred pounds on iTunes and ruptured my relationship with guitars — Nick Hornby * Believer magazine * As in his magisterial Love Goes to Buildings on Fire, Will Hermes again tracks the traces of time in New York City, but now focusing in on one pulse, the scorching light that was Lou Reed. He chronicles the past that made this artist and the future he helped call into being our own, especially the expansive senses of gender and sexuality that Reed longed for and sang about, but never got to benefit from fully. Hermes’s empathy for the pain behind his subject’s notoriously difficult personality is worthy of the humanity of Reed’s songs, and I couldn’t offer higher praise — Carl Wilson, author of LET’S TALK ABOUT LOVE Hermes shrewdly probes Reed’s complex personal and professional life . . . Hermes’ strength is in identifying and articulating the transformational brilliance of Reed’s songwriting and performances within the context of the 1960s and ’70s music scene. Reverent about his artistry, he’s also discerningly cognizant of Reed’s temperamental shortcomings . . . An engrossing, fully dimensional portrait of an influential yet elusive performer * Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review *