‘Excellent… exhaustive… never dull’: First reviews of The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren
“With this book, Gorman convincingly moves away from the ossified image of McLaren as a great rock’n’roll swindler, a morally bankrupt punk Mephistopheles, and closer towards his art-school roots, his love of ideas”
Victoria Segal reviewing The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren in the Sunday Times, April 5, 202
The first reviews of my Malcolm McLaren biography are carried today by Britain’s Sunday Times Culture section and in The New Review magazine of it’s broadsheet rival The Observer.
Both are behind paywalls – see the Times here and The Observer’s here if you are able.
//From Segal’s review in The Sunday Times//
Given the lead book review Victoria Segal in the Sunday Times is very positive, describing the book as “excellent”, while The Observer’s Sean O’Hagan is more cautious, plumping for “exhaustive”, believing the section on McLaren’s involvement with the Sex Pistols covers well-trodden ground, even though he accepts I have brought new information to light, including the never-published memories of artist David Harrison, who rehearsed with the nascent group in the summer of 1975 prior to John Lydon’s recruitment. Harrison was also frontman of McLaren’s absurdly-titled band project Masters of the Backside, whose line-up included Chrissie Hynde, Rat Scabies and Dave Vanian.
//From O’Hagan’s review//
You will be able to judge for yourselves soon. The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren is published by Constable on Thursday (April 9). I am very grateful to the team at Constable and the British printer Clays for pulling out all the stops amid the current crisis.
Copies are available to order here. If you wish to avoid Amazon I recommend A Great Read, or you can support your local independent book store by checking whether they’ll send by mail or deliver.
In the US copies are available to order from here with the ebook available on April 9; the physical book will be out in the States in July.