Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan

by Howard Sounes

Overview

The acclaimed biography—now updated and revised. “Many writers have tried to probe [Dylan’s] life, but never has it been done so well, so captivatingly” (The Boston Globe).
 
Howard Sounes’s Down the Highway broke news about Dylan’s fiercely guarded personal life and set the standard as the most comprehensive and riveting biography on Bob Dylan. Now this edition continues to document the iconic songwriter’s life through new interviews and reporting, covering the release of Dylan’s first #1 album since the seventies, recognition from the Pulitzer Prize jury for his influence on popular culture, and the publication of his bestselling memoir, giving full appreciation to his artistic achievements and profound significance.
 
Candid and refreshing, Down the Highway is a sincere tribute to Dylan’s seminal place in postwar American cultural history, and remains an essential book for the millions of people who have enjoyed Dylan’s music over the years.
 
“Irresistible . . . Finally puts Dylan the human being in the rocket’s red glare.” —Detroit Free Press

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802195456
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	05/24/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	560
Sales rank:	241,526
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Howard Sounes (b. 1965) who was born in Welling, a suburb of South East London, was working as a news reporter for the Sunday Mirror in 1994 when he broke the first major stories in the case of Frederick and Rosemary West. Sounes went on to cover the West story extensively for the Sunday Mirror, then the Daily Mirror, up to and including Rose West’s trial in the autumn of 1995. Fred & Rose was first published shortly after Mrs. West’s conviction on ten counts of murder. A bestseller at the time, it has remained in print ever since, becoming one of the most widely read true crime books.

Shortly after Fred & Rose was published, Sounes resigned from the Daily Mirror to pursue a career as a full-time author. His subsequent books have included a biography of American writer Charles Bukowski (Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life); biographies of musicians Bob Dylan (Down the Highway), Paul McCartney (Fab), and Lou Reed (Notes from the Velvet Underground); a book about Amy Winehouse and other musicians who died at the age of twenty-seven (Amy, 27); a history of the arts in the 1970s (Seventies); and Heist: The True Story of the World’s Biggest Cash Robbery.

For more information visit www.howardsounes.com.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Down the Highway

“Sounes [has] produced [a] fascinating and finely written account of Dylan’s life and times, while managing at the same time to provide interesting evaluations of his music and cultural contribution.”— The New Republic

“Sounes . . . pieces together testimony and circumstantial evidence into a fairly detailed account of Dylan’s wreck. . . . It’s the kind of thing Sounes does well, opening new angles on the enigmatic polyhedron that is Dylan.”— The Nation

“[Sounes] offers information that, in sheer quantity, supersedes prior accounts.”— The New York Times Book Review

“Sounes’ book has the definite virtue of being the last one you’ll ever need to read about Dylan.”— Salon

“With little sensationalism, the inscrutable and intensely private Dylan is dissected, measured, and categorized.”— Esquire

“[Sounes] has scoured court documents and interviewed friends, family, lovers, band members and anyone else who had contact with the mercurial troubadour. . . . [He] appears to know every nuance of every track Dylan has ever recorded—and the inspirations for famous songs.”— Washington Post Book World

“Irresistible . . . finally puts Dylan the human being in the rocket’s red glare.”— Detroit Free Press

“[A] lively, exhaustively researched book. . . . Sounes strikes a healthy balance, packing the book with musical details aimed at Dylan diehards without wallowing in the dirty laundry that will no doubt make headlines.”— The Boston Globe

Praise for Charles Bukowski

“Bukowski is one of those writers people remember more for the legend than for the work . . . but, as Howard Sounes shows in this exhaustively researched biography, it wasn’t the whole story.”— Los Angeles Times

“Engaging . . . adroit . . . revealing.”— The New York Times Book Review

“Howard Sounes does an admirable job of re-creating Bukowski’s journey through the underground passages of the American literary landscape.”— Sarasota Herald-Tribune

“A must-read for anybody who is a fan of Bukowski’s writing, Howard Sounes successfully conjures up the voice of this outrageous character and offers clear-eyed insight into his extraordinary life.”— The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“Excellent. . . . A fast-paced narrative and a great read.”— Minneapolis City Pages

“Howard Sounes writes with wit and compassion about this irascible wild man of American letters.”—Judith Wynn, Boston Herald

“ Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life is a generous tribute to Bukowski’s genius and it clearly and truthfully captures the essence of Bukowski both as writer and man.”—John Martin, Black Sparrow Press (Bukowski’s editor)

“With no shortage of anecdotes, pictures or big names, this [biography] is so thorough and sharp that it may as well be the last.”—Graham Caveney, Arena

“A remarkable account of the poet laureate of Skid Row’s bedeviled sojourn on planet Earth.”—Iain S. Bruce, The Glasgow Herald

“This is the first in-depth biography of Bukowski and succeeds by pulling into focus the hazy image of the apocryphal barfly anti-hero . . . a picaresque read.”—Nick Wyke, The Times (London)

“Wonderful . . . the first such serious and thorough Bukowski biography. . . . An excellent book about a remarkable man.”—Ross Fortune, Time Out

“A fine storyteller, descriptive and visual, Sounes sticks with the stuff that made Bukowski a legend.”—Tulsa Kinney, LA Weekly

“A lively portrait of American literature’s ‘Dirty Old Man.’”—William Gargan, Library Journal

“The man who emerges from Sounes’s work is one who shamelessly pursued his needs for beer, women and recognition—a man capable of tenderness, who always paid child support for his daughter and who resisted the seductions of belated, relished fame. This biography is an affectionate and thorough introduction that will not be rivaled for quite some time. Its effect is to revitalize rather than reduce Bukowski’s work: poems and stories that help keep people alive.”—Guy Mannes-Abbott, The Independent

From the Publisher