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A review by booksuperpower
A Natural Woman: A Memoir by Carole King
2.0
A Natural Woman: A Memoir by Carole King is a 2012 Grand Central Publication.
I have a feature on my blog called “Monday’s Musical Moments” where I spotlight a book with some kind of musical elements. Rock biographies and memoirs make up the majority of these posts, but recently, I have not used this feature because the books have been so lackluster I didn’t feel comfortable promoting them.
But, surely a memoir by Carole King would not fall into that category….
I didn’t read any reviews of this book in advance, so had no idea how well it was received, but I had really high hopes for it.
Growing up in the seventies, I heard all the songs from ‘Tapestry’ as they got loads of radio airplay and I knew every one of them by heart. It wasn’t until I got older, though, that I really understood why this album was so phenomenal. I also had no idea Carole co-authored so many hits in the fifties and sixties with her first husband, Gerry Goffin, until I was much older.
The amount of success, as a songwriter, that Carole has enjoyed is mind boggling. Just reading over the list of songs she has written is incredible. There is no doubt she is very gifted and her body of work is very impressive. However, this book is not….
The book is written by Carole King and she claims it took her twelve years to complete it. While she is certainly adept at composing music, authoring a book is not one of her strong suits. Although the book is organized chronologically for the most part, and is organized, the author’s choices of what to leave in or what to leave out were poor.
The first half of the book is told with great enthusiasm, as the author looks back over her childhood, her first musical successes and failures, her desire to act, her first marriage, parenthood, living as a traditional fifties housewife, as well as maintaining a career in the music field.
But, cracks began to appear as her first marriage dissolved and she moves to the west coast. By the time we got to how Carole went from being mostly behind the scenes or a ‘side man’, to taking center stage herself, the book began to lose ground as Carole herself did, in my opinion.
It was interesting how Carole was nudged into stepping out of the shadows and taking center stage herself and how easily she made that transition after having avoided it for so long. But, the author seemed to forget that while readers are curious about her personal life, the reason they long to know more about her is because of her career. Carole failed to balance her personal life with her career in this book, totally glossing over any insights into ‘Tapestry’, giving the making of this iconic album little time, but did spend tons of space relating her legal battles over land in Idaho.
Carole’s personal life was marred by troubled relationships with men, having four failed marriages, one of which was abusive.
Once more, a musical memoir has left me with the feeling of ‘what you don’t know won't hurt you’. I have admired Ms. King for decades and love, love, love her music. But, her personality, and the way she handled her personal life left me less than impressed and I now regret having read this book.
It is sometimes difficult to separate what we know about an artist personally from what they do for a living. I can do that in most cases, so I will always love Carole’s contribution to music and enjoy her songs just as I always have, but do wish I could have been as impressed by her personal life as I have been with her professional one.
At this point, the future of ‘Monday’s Musical Moment’ spotlight is up in the air as I have become a bit uneasy about reading more memoirs written by musicians….
Overall, this one gets 2 stars
I have a feature on my blog called “Monday’s Musical Moments” where I spotlight a book with some kind of musical elements. Rock biographies and memoirs make up the majority of these posts, but recently, I have not used this feature because the books have been so lackluster I didn’t feel comfortable promoting them.
But, surely a memoir by Carole King would not fall into that category….
I didn’t read any reviews of this book in advance, so had no idea how well it was received, but I had really high hopes for it.
Growing up in the seventies, I heard all the songs from ‘Tapestry’ as they got loads of radio airplay and I knew every one of them by heart. It wasn’t until I got older, though, that I really understood why this album was so phenomenal. I also had no idea Carole co-authored so many hits in the fifties and sixties with her first husband, Gerry Goffin, until I was much older.
The amount of success, as a songwriter, that Carole has enjoyed is mind boggling. Just reading over the list of songs she has written is incredible. There is no doubt she is very gifted and her body of work is very impressive. However, this book is not….
The book is written by Carole King and she claims it took her twelve years to complete it. While she is certainly adept at composing music, authoring a book is not one of her strong suits. Although the book is organized chronologically for the most part, and is organized, the author’s choices of what to leave in or what to leave out were poor.
The first half of the book is told with great enthusiasm, as the author looks back over her childhood, her first musical successes and failures, her desire to act, her first marriage, parenthood, living as a traditional fifties housewife, as well as maintaining a career in the music field.
But, cracks began to appear as her first marriage dissolved and she moves to the west coast. By the time we got to how Carole went from being mostly behind the scenes or a ‘side man’, to taking center stage herself, the book began to lose ground as Carole herself did, in my opinion.
It was interesting how Carole was nudged into stepping out of the shadows and taking center stage herself and how easily she made that transition after having avoided it for so long. But, the author seemed to forget that while readers are curious about her personal life, the reason they long to know more about her is because of her career. Carole failed to balance her personal life with her career in this book, totally glossing over any insights into ‘Tapestry’, giving the making of this iconic album little time, but did spend tons of space relating her legal battles over land in Idaho.
Carole’s personal life was marred by troubled relationships with men, having four failed marriages, one of which was abusive.
Once more, a musical memoir has left me with the feeling of ‘what you don’t know won't hurt you’. I have admired Ms. King for decades and love, love, love her music. But, her personality, and the way she handled her personal life left me less than impressed and I now regret having read this book.
It is sometimes difficult to separate what we know about an artist personally from what they do for a living. I can do that in most cases, so I will always love Carole’s contribution to music and enjoy her songs just as I always have, but do wish I could have been as impressed by her personal life as I have been with her professional one.
At this point, the future of ‘Monday’s Musical Moment’ spotlight is up in the air as I have become a bit uneasy about reading more memoirs written by musicians….
Overall, this one gets 2 stars