Art Pepper told his sexy, sordid, and exciting true adventure stories to his lover, Laurie, who put them in a book. -Michael Connelly, Author of the Harry Bosch series of novels "I was no angel," Laurie Pepper advises at the start of this stingingly candid memoir, and in truth she is a wonderfully devilish writer, her pen a razor dipped in sulfur, her memory a lead-lined cave from which nothing escapes or.
It was impossible for me to put it down.
It inspires the belief that love can overcome all obstacles and that creative talent knows no bounds.
We rescued each other." ADVANCE PRAISE FOR "ART" Forged at the collision point of true art and real life, this brutally honest book is an engrossing journey across the hard countries of love and loss and redemption.
But he knew how truly crazy I could be.
And Art encouraged them in that.
I had to tell that story." She says she also needs to set the record straight and clarify her role: "People think I was some kind of little wifey-saint who rescued him.
We had a difficult, powerful partnership.
I married a genius who valued and inspired me and challenged me to use MY gifts. "Some people go to grad school or join the Marines. "That marriage was the making of me," says Laurie.
Art: Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman (APMCorp), describes her marriage to the deeply troubled, drug-addicted, madly gifted artist. "Why I Stuck with a Junkie Jazzman" was the headline some editor gave a newspaper interview Laurie did while the band was in Australia in 1981, and she\'s now stolen that "that perfect title" for her memoir.
Laurie went on to marry Art and manage his resurgent career, touring the world with his band.
It was critical success and remains a classic of its kind, the subject of college literary and music studies.
Straight Life by Art and Laurie Pepper (Da Capo) was published in 1979.
She quizzed him (and those who knew him) unrelentingly over seven years, editing and structuring a narrative to which she dedicated all her energy.
Art Pepper told his sexy, sordid, and exciting true adventure stories to his lover, Laurie, who put them in a book
