RaveThe Guardian (UK)Surprises don’t feel crucial to a work that builds its world as much through narrative voice as its description of events. That voice can take some getting used to. Oddly formal, even archaic, in tone, at times unrestrained if not undisciplined, Smith’s literary mind is a wild mare. It can occasionally feel repetitive or self‑indulgent. But once you settle in, it casts a potent spell ... Elegant.
Flea
RaveRolling Stone... Call him disingenuous. Still, you’ll most probably want to hug him before you’re 10 pages in ... Flea’s got a compelling, vulnerable, self-interrogating writer’s voice; his editor on the project was David Ritz, who’s abetted some great music memoirs and biographies, generally focused on finding his subject’s beating heart. That must’ve been a breeze with Flea, whose outsize heart appears regularly here — on his sleeve and occasionally in his mouth ... The book will disappoint heads looking for rock & roll war stories from the Chili Peppers’ heyday. But like Just Kids or Chronicles: Volume One, these prefame narratives focus on the human behind the art, and like those memoirs, it’s part of an ongoing narrative project that, based on the evidence, should be worth following.
Lou Reed
RaveThe Rolling StoneReed fans will find plenty here that echoes his verses, like the whiff of violence and sly humor ... But there are revelations, too, with the sort of emotional nuance his Seventies solo work didn\'t often cultivate ... a touching portrait of the artist as a young-ish man, following his muse, doing his work, tending his soul.
