Firstly, the promo campaign sucked, press so geared to the The Times’ exclusive that any other select reviewers were locked in a room to read all 500-odd pages without a notepad, thereby missing many subtleties, delights and diversions which emerge during an unpressured read. Now the Keith hardcore will have read it by the time this comes out, hence the standard-sized review here.
Gripe over, Life is everything promised and a whole lot more. The autobiography of the century, alongside Dylan’s Chronicles. Amazing how many journalists focused on a fraction of the eloquent, dry, incisive and frequently jaw-dropping revelations packed within, predictably homing in on Keith’s vivid accounts of well-trodden events to the exclusion of other revelations which make for a real feeling of getting to know the author. Having written a Keith biography myself, it’s amazing how wrong second-hand research can be, though the overall effect recalls the curious sensation after one of Keith’s exhausting boys-night-ins that I had the pleasure to attend: elevating, draining and entertaining.
Of the much-discussed Jagger wrestling, best is the comparison with Keith’s (shor-tlived) grumpy pet mynah bird: “… like living with Mick in the room in a cage, always pursing its beak”. As ever, Keith’s blunt honesty about drugs has stirred repercussions: Disney have considered chopping his scenes from the new Pirates Of The Caribbean movie. Life, eh?
