NYR iOS app Android app More  Peter Clothier  Peter Clothier
Posted: February 9, 2011 01:15 PM  Keith Richards's
autobiography, Life, is quite a ride. I'm not, honestly, that
familiar with the work of the Rolling Stones, nor with the rock
'n' roll scene in general. I enjoy hearing the band
occasionally, when there's one of their more familiar tunes
playing on the radio. But I am not a regular nor a particularly
enthusiastic listener, and I would likely not even have picked
up this book had it not been so widely praised.  I can see why.
Despite its length, it does speed along through the years at a
nifty pace, in a colorful, effortless romp of language that
combines the musician's idiom with a kind of cocky,
irreverential Brit-talk that you hear in a Monty Python episode.
The narrative, I'm sure, is told orally by Richards and
transcribed (by co-writer James Fox) with all its rough edges,
non sequiturs and profanities intact -- all of which makes for
refreshingly salt prose. It's fun to read.  I have been awa