One of Gothamist's favorite Midwesterners turned New Yorker would have to be Bob Dylan. Another being F. Scott. Both authors of a different time and caliber, now one has now written an autobiography (that being the, um, alive one).
Dylan wrote his first book, Tarantula (an all lower case piece of fiction), in 1966. This time around he's written an account of his life entitled Chronicles, which he typed in all caps on a manual typewriter over the course of three years. The book, due out on October 12th, is self-described as a portrait of his life as "...a dream. It's already happened." As opposed to what insight into the mysterious singer you can pull from his songs, which are described by him as being a more visionary prose. With Chronicles, the ever elusive Dylan makes an attempt to explain himself to the rest of the world. An attempt which he seemed to not enjoy one bit, stating to Newsweek in a rare interview, "Lest we forget, while you're writing, you're not living. What do they call it? Splendid isolation? I don't find it that splendid."
Chronicles Vol. 1 is the first of a 3 volume memoir, a surprisingly high amount of verbiage for someone known for his mystique. The man has shunned his title of being the voice of his generation, he has spoken to us in metaphors and powerful lyrics...so Gothamist is interested to see what will be inside these volumes where he will tell it to us straight. Where he will tell us what he was watching while we were watching him.
Noteworthy: The audiobook, due out the same time as the book, will be narrated by Sean Penn.
Also worth checking out is Positively 4th Street, a look at the lives of Dylan, Farina and the Baez sisters circa the 60's.
Read the article in Newsweek, which hits stands today. [Thanks to Stereogum for the heads up]
