This approach aptly describes her dissection of her own life as well. Faithful is more analytical, ironic, self-scrutinizing and literate than most celebrity autobiographers. Writing with Dalton , she depicts with penetrating insight the world of "free love, psychedelic drugs, fashion, Zen, Nietzsche, tribal trinkets, customized Existentialism, hedonism and rock 'n' roll" that absorbed her energies from the beginning of her singing career as a teenager in 1960s London.

From her tumultuous four-year relationship with Mick Jagger through her descent into junkydom to her "comeback" in the late '70s as a punk-rock diva, Faithful embodies rock culture at both its most glamorous and most destructive. A self-described "victim of cool," she is nevertheless a tough (and often astutely feminist) commentator on the underside of the rock 'n' roll dream. Plenty of photographs.

A searing autobiography by one of rock 'n' roll's most tragic and romantic figures. A descendant of Austrian novelist Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the beautiful Faithfull was discovered by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Oldham in 1964 and became an instant pop celebrity with her recording of the brooding ``As Tears Go By,'' a song Oldham asked Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to write for her. In a short time, Faithfull had become an internationally famous music and movie star, but she had little control over her image or artistic output.

Faithfull, who's had her own share of same-sex dalliances, suggests it was sexual tensions among the highly repressed Stones that gave them their manic energy: ``Who was the great love of [Jagger's] life? Actually, I think it was Keith.'' The tone is both compelling and pathetic as Faithfull details two decades of drug abuse and numerous lonely attempts to escape her addiction. From watching a lover commit suicide to recent singing and acting successes on her own terms, Faithfull has lived enough for three or four people--yet she is only 47 (in 1995).

 Little Brown & Co 0-316-27323-6 / 9780316273237
Paperback as new condition 

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