‘Masterful and painstaking’: The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren will be published on April 9
“Within the slippery divides between disciplines and media – fashion, art, music, interiors, commerce – one finds Malcolm McLaren, roaming and creating.”
Lou Stoppard in her essay in The Life & Times Of Malcolm McLaren
Disruption to the publication of a book is extremely small beer at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has set the world in disarray, so I’m sanguine about the postponement of several events and signings which were due to occur around the publication of my biography The Life & Times Of Malcolm McLaren.
//The back of the book jacket features this 1976 portrait by photographer Joe Stevens//
With a foreword by comic book writer, magician and performer Alan Moore – who produced the 1985 film script Fashion Beast for McLaren during his tenure as a production executive at CBS Theatrical Films in Los Angeles – and an essay by writer and curator Lou Stoppard providing a 21st century perspective on the man’s achievements, it’s a big book at 880 pages.
I have sought to widen the focus on this culturally significant figure to enable a more rounded portrait than has hitherto been available. In this quest I was assisted not only by access to papers from the Malcolm McLaren Estate but also his father Peter McLaren’s memories, as dictated in the 1990s.
These provide first-hand testimony on the strange circumstances of Peter McLaren’s departure from the family household when his son was 22 months old and his absence from his life until 1989, when they were reunited when Malcolm McLaren was 43.
//The jacket in full. Design: Tracey Winwood//
As my text on the back of the book indicates, the book also approaches McLaren as a multi-disciplined figure, one who tore down the barriers between forms of self-expression. My hope is that it inspires contemporary visual artists, designers and cultural magpies and mischief-makers to go about their business with renewed vigour. God knows, in these benighted times, we need their energy.
Copies are available to order here. If you wish to avoid Amazon I recommend A Great Read, or you could support your local independent book store by checking whether they’ll send by mail or deliver.
Stay safe.