Boys in the Trees: A Memoir
Carly Simon
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 1250095913
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller
A People Magazine Top Ten Book of the Year!
"Intelligent and captivating. Don't miss it." - People Magazine
"One of the best celebrity memoirs of the year." -The Hollywood Reporter
Rock Star. Composer and Lyricist. Feminist Icon. Survivor.
Simon's memoir reveals her remarkable life, beginning with her storied childhood as the third daughter of Richard L. Simon, the co-founder of publishing giant Simon & Schuster, her musical debut as half of The Simon Sisters performing folk songs with her sister Lucy in Greenwich Village, to a meteoric solo career that would result in 13 top 40 hits, including the #1 song "You're So Vain." She was the first artist in history to win a Grammy Award, an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, for her song "Let the River Run" from the movie Working Girl.
The memoir recalls a childhood enriched by music and culture, but also one shrouded in secrets that would eventually tear her family apart. Simon brilliantly captures moments of creative inspiration, the sparks of songs, and the stories behind writing "Anticipation" and "We Have No Secrets" among many others. Romantic entanglements with some of the most famous men of the day fueled her confessional lyrics, as well as the unraveling of her storybook marriage to James Taylor.
An Intimate Life: Sex, Love, and My Journey as a Surrogate Partner
I Wish I Were Engulfed in Flames: My Insane Life Raising Two Boys with Autism
tapping your foot,” Mommy said, and I did, halfheartedly at first, then speeding up the tempo. She went on: “Try saying ‘Pass the butter,’ but as if you were singing it. Make believe it’s a note.” I began hitting my thigh with a steady 4/4 beat. I had an instinctive ability to say the words on the offbeat, on a syncopation of the 4/4. The result even made it swing. From there, it was an easy step to add a little melody—C, B flat, E flat—at which point the whole table, including Sula, our cook,
dignity” whose fatal flaw, or crack, in an otherwise admirable personality, precipitates his downfall. The tragic hero, he went on, is very often a great man who defies evil, or who comes face to face with “an indifferent universe.” All of which made me think of Daddy, and Nick himself pointed out the similarities. Why, Nick wrote in that same letter, should any man suffer out of all proportion to his sin? Why, indeed, unless the universe be evil and meaningless? “Tragedy depends on the notion
summer place in Stamford, Connecticut, were a medley of sounds and images: the tinkling of ice in cocktail glasses, the tiny gold violins and birdcages of the women’s charm bracelets, slingshot repartee, muffled downstairs laughter, glasses tipped against lips, dips and martinis, shrimp suspended in tomato aspic—bell peals and light flashes that made up the percussion section of the orchestra that was my growing up. In his role as the Simon half of Simon & Schuster, Daddy surrounded himself with
idea who Willie Donaldson was, and knew even less what, if anything, he expected of me in return. Did he assume I’d called him in hopes of landing a secretarial position, or a part in a play, or a job as his cat walker? What had our mutual family friend told him about me? Had Willie ever heard of the Simon Sisters? I doubted it. I could still be a call girl. It could be a naughty nun reference. There was no gag on our imaginations. The town house in which we were sitting, it turned out, belonged
Wall of Fame. Of course, we both answered, we’d be honored. Our pictures were already in residence, but far apart, so Henry moved mine over so it hung next to James’s, prominently, too, at eye level. * * * Less than two weeks later, we drove to the Vineyard in James’s green truck, to see his “cabin in the woods”—the “shack,” as James kept on referring to it. Having spent my Vineyard summers up-island, I had always dreamed of having a house there someday, maybe in Chilmark, directly on the
