Unlike previous biographers, DeCurtis prefers to emphasise the rising above over the more debased aspects of Reed’s life. The black eyes he gave his first wife, Bettye Kronstad, and the racist and anti-Semitic epithets he uttered during amphetamine and whisky binges in the 1970s are treated parenthetically. But the tension between Reed’s desire for acceptance — he was determined to be seen as a weighty literary figure — and bold defiance is well handled. The links between the provocateur who shaved a swastika in his hair in the 1970s and the cussed middle-aged rocker who grew increasingly interested in his Jewishness are plausibly elucidated. The result is an even-handed, well-researched portrait rendered in the spirit of 'the empathy and distance' that DeCurtis identifies as crucial to Reed’s songwriting.

Reading Anthony DeCurtis’s Lou Reed: A Life can sometimes give you the feeling that the author can’t wait for the absurd to quit courting the vulgar, but DeCurtis — a longtime MVP of the Rolling Stone writers’ stable — knows he can’t completely gloss over the seamy, abrasive, riveting spectacle Reed made of himself in those early post-VU years ... DeCurtis has put in commendable spadework, exhuming everything he can about Reed’s early years, from his simultaneously impudent, sitcom-esque, and damaged midcentury Long Island adolescence to the embryonic but recognizable Lou Reed ... While he’s skillful at assembling the biographical building blocks that reward interest at a casual level, his book isn’t just short on dirt. It’s short on resonance, advocacy, identification, deep-dive cultural spelunking, provocative arguments, nuance, fervor, and everything else that sums up the difference between perspective and an actual point of view, particularly when the subject is an artist as gnarly and passion-provoking as Lou Reed ... f there’s an interestingly phrased sentence anywhere in DeCurtis’s book, good luck finding it. As usual, he’s capable, intelligent, suave, informed, readable — and bloodless.

Biographer and esteemed music critic Anthony DeCurtis knew Reed moderately well, yet does an admirable job maintaining objectivity, especially when confronting some of Reed’s episodes of cruelty, violence, and pettiness, while balancing those with positive qualities of quiet tenderness and mentorship he often showed, especially toward the end of his life. DeCurtis does get a bit carried away when praising Reed’s body of work, however ... The rock journalist is also guilty of what we might call 'insider trading' when praising a song whose backstory he has special knowledge of ... On balance, though, DeCurtis gives us a compelling bird’s-eye view of an amazing life.

What were the sources of Reed’s rage, and the obnoxiousness that led the Swedish actor Erland Josephson to believe that he had just met someone called Lee Rude? Like most rock biographies, Anthony DeCurtis’s Lou Reed: A Life spins Freud’s early hits. But, then, rock was the sound of revolt in the days when the family was still nuclear, and Reed did write Oedipal numbers like ‘Kill Your Sons’ … A Life is comprehensive and sympathetic, if too generous in its patience with Reed’s sadism, rudeness, vanity and patchy solo albums. For Mr. DeCurtis, Reed’s biographical Rosebud was homosexual shame deriving from his upbringing. In the end, he didn’t want to be the first gay rock star.

Lou Reed: A Life” is engaging at the beginning, as DeCurtis is able to tell the story by interviewing high school bandmates and former girlfriends. However, as he moves into Reed’s time in the Velvet Underground, DeCurtis is rarely able to talk to those directly involved. Soon the book’s structure of using Reed’s albums and their critical reception as a lens on his life begins to feel predictable. This ends up making Lou Reed: A Life feel more like Lou Reed: The Work — a worthwhile endeavor, but not one that lives up to the well-reported early and late chapters. At times, you can almost feel the elusive Reed slipping out of DeCurtis’ grasp.

Lou Reed: A Life is a biography, not a detailed critical study of Reed's music. In context, DeCurtis offers some evaluations. I don't agree with them all. For example, I think DeCurtis is too kind to Lulu (2011), Reed's dreadful collaboration with Metallica. But Reed's musical path was a messy, complicated one. Diehard fans often disagree on the merits of individual recordings. Through his reporting and judicious writing, DeCurtis does a quality job of illuminating Reed's challenging, artistic life.

DeCurtis’ biography (not the first since Reed’s death four years ago at age 71, and it won’t be the last) makes a case for Reed’s influence that’s as durable as black leather. Reed combined literary aspirations with a fearless eye for deviance and, by extension, a staunch defense of freedom of expression … In DeCurtis’ analysis, Reed knew from an early age, when he was kicking against his parents’ suburban Jewish lifestyle, that rock ’n’ roll could be a medium for the kind of subversive literature that was, by the late 1950s, challenging the polite middle class he’d been born into.

...a vivid and compelling account of the life and work of this complex and controversial popular music figure ... If Reed went too far, personally and professionally, 'that was just the price that had to be paid for everyone else not going far enough.' These claims, and DeCurtis' assertion that Reed's 'failures' (his albums did not sell all that well) are 'marks of his integrity,' should, in my judgment, be met with skepticism. DeCurtis is almost surely right, however, that Reed's drug addiction, his bisexuality, fascination with transsexuals, rejection of gender orthodoxy, and contempt for the obsession with success were part of the 'cultural moment' of the 1960s and '70s.

Reed embarked on a long solo career, marked by alternating flashes of brilliance and gestures that seemed deliberate self-sabotage. DeCurtis faithfully chronicles all of them, with detailed information on recording sessions and Reed’s musical collaborators. He also gives illuminating background information, often drawn from Reed’s personal experiences, on what led to some of the compositions ... While his assessment of Reed’s importance seems slightly overblown, the book is a well-written, valuable document of a major figure in the American rock scene, putting a human face on a man who often seemed impossibly remote.

...[an] engaging yet uneven biography ... While DeCurtis touches on Reed’s violent behavior, substance abuse, and complex sexuality, the icon remains distinct but quite distant, and DeCurtis’s takes on Reed’s musical output are equally lacking. The 500-plus pages pass swiftly but leave the impression that when it comes to Reed, much remains to be said.