A Natural Woman (book)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A Natural Woman: A Memoir
ISBN
978-1-4555-1261-4

A Natural Woman: A Memoir is a 2012 memoir by musician Carole King.

Publication

The 484-page book was published by Grand Central on April 10, 2012.[1]

Content

A Natural Woman spans King's career from musical beginnings in early childhood and the recording contract she signed as a teenager in the 1950s, through a career spanning more than six more decades. Writing in

The Telegraph, found King's text "gently protective of the fascinating, but often destructive, people in King's life...Relentlessly empathetic, King hasn’t a bad word to say about anybody," even when describing marriages affected by a husband's drug use, mental illness, infidelity or domestic violence.[3] Several reviewers remarked on this characteristic of the book: Sullivan found A Natural Woman described "someone, you fancy, who would remember your birthday and return your calls" and notes this kindness and conscientiousness reflected in the book's prose: "And she writes that way, constructing sentences correctly, telling anecdotes with scrupulous attention to detail (avoiding drugs in the 60s had its benefits – she can actually remember the decade) and fretting maternally about family and friends."[2] In Vanity Fair, Bruce Handy noted the consonance of the memoir's warm tenor with the same in King's music: "King is the woman who wrote the lyric: 'You got to get up every morning/With a smile on your face/And show the world/All the love in your heart.' And that is very much the woman who wrote her memoir."[4]

Reception

A Natural Woman received predominantly favorable reviews. In The Independent, Liz Thomson wrote: "what a memoir: intelligent, honest, self-effacing, well-written."[5] Handy argued that King's "characteristic generosity of spirit" marks the book "for good and ill...Spite is a horrible emotion, but memoir-writing might be the one activity where it comes in handy, at least from a readers' point of view." However, in The Los Angeles Times, Evelyn McDonnell found King's memoir, if "sometimes, determinedly unglamorous", "far more original" than "the usual celebrity story of hardship, riches, overindulgence, downfall and rehab."[6] Brown's Telegraph review gave the book three of five stars.[3]

References

  1. ^ "A NATURAL WOMAN A Memoir by Carole King". Kirkus Reviews. February 13, 2012. Retrieved July 28, 2017.
  2. ^ a b Sullivan, Caroline (6 April 2012). "A Natural Woman by Carole King – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  3. ^ a b Brown, Helen (17 April 2012). "A Natural Woman by Carole King: review". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  4. ^ Handy, Bruce (April 16, 2012). "From a Sly Mad Men Reference to Her New Memoir, Carole King's Pop-Culture Renaissance". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  5. ^ Thomson, Liz (20 April 2012). "A Natural Woman: A Memoir, By Carole King". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2012-04-23. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  6. ^ McDonnell, Evelyn (25 April 2012). "Her struggle to stay natural". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 28 July 2017.

External links