The Time out of Mind

July 28, 2014
This final volume of Bell's two-part biography of Dylan picks up in 1975 with the release of his classic album Blood on the Tracks. Bell uses the divorce that inspired the record as a jumping off point into an exploration of why Dylan "is what he is." What Bell discovers is a man and artist who is constantly reinvents himself and his music. While the author meticulously records Dylan's religious awakening in the late 1970s and his poorly received albums of the '80s (including, as Bell notes, the "piece of crap" he would choose to call Knocked Out Loaded), his rebirth in the late '90s, and his metamorphosis into a "living historical project," Dylan keeps on moving just out of reach. However, by following Dylan's 25-year "unending pilgrimage" of worldwide touring, Bell has penned a fluid biography of a man and musician whose ongoing personal narrative is as intricate and unique as his epic songs.

September 1, 2014
The second volume of the Scottish journalist's massive life of the astonishing performer and songwriter who, though now 73, continues to puzzle, amaze and perturb in equal measure.Few celebrities in any era have held the limelight for so long as Dylan-or endured the indignities of the endless Google searches for the antecedents of his lyrics. Recognizing he has a virtually impossible task, Bell (Once Upon a Time: The Lives of Bob Dylan, 2013, etc.) chooses his focuses carefully. He writes in great detail about Dylan's music, his touring (not all of it-that would be impossible), his evolving multiple selves and his ability to do just about exactly what he wants to all the time. This means that he has been able to make movies (usually bad), have exhibits of his artwork, play anywhere he wants to with whomever he wants (from the Grateful Dead to Paul Simon), say what he wants, have a satellite radio show (which the author praises), fail to show up for awards, sell underwear and present enough contradictory faces to the world to make Janus blush. The author is hard on just about all of Dylan's critics (Greil Marcus, for example), except, of course, himself and novelist Jonathan Lethem, whose Rolling Stone interview with Dylan the author quotes favorably. Bell assails those who accuse Dylan of plagiarism, arguing several times that Dylan may borrow, but he also has to craft it all into art. (He does back off on a set of paintings that Dylan patently copied.) Bell writes little about Dylan's love life and children, saying nothing at all, for example, about son Jakob's double Grammys in 1997. The author excels at rumination, which he does on nearly every page. Bell often succeeds in freezing time, permitting us glimpses of one of the multiple Dylans creating art in one of his multiverses.

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Starred review from September 1, 2014
In his follow-up to Once upon a Time (2013), award-winning Bell continues his thoughtful, insightful biography of the enigmatic Mr. Dylan. This volume begins with the singer's critically acclaimed 1975 album, Blood on the Tracks, and chronicles Dylan's various ups and downs through the problematic late 1970s and '80s. Bell follows Dylan and company on the Rolling Thunder Revue; discusses the singer's controversial, and often misunderstood, born-again period; recalls his flirt with death in 1997, when he suffered from pericarditis, a swelling of the fibrous sac around the heart; and examines the ongoing plagiarism accusations directed against Dylan. Bell devotes considerable space to each album released during this period up to Tempest (2012), critiquing the songs at length. His discussion of Dylan's midcareer masterpiece, Blind Willie McTell, for example, is spread out over more than a half-dozen pages as Bell uncovers the secret meaningsallusion after allusionembedded in the song. There is much here to savor, as when Bell describes Dylan's now-ravaged voice as a magnificent ruin, even as he appreciates what the singer is still able to do with it, or when he comments on the profound sadness the singer felt when Elvis Presley died ( Presley mattered almost as much to Dylan as the loss of his marriage ). A must for Dylan fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)