If you're looking for a good read about sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, you'll get a lot of drugs, a little sex, and a hint of rock in this account of the Rolling Stones' sordid summer in France which eventuated in the eponymous album the next year. The book contains very little emphasis on music save for a coda which digests various critical reactions to the album over the years, together with an update on the fates of the dramatis personae, as well as a meditation on the state of the band at the dawn of this century. To me, this was by far the best part of the book. The main thrust of it is almost entirely populated by an unending series of pushers, drug buddies, petty thieves, and mules who are a little hard to keep straight or care much about and is marred, as is much of the book, by its supercilious author trashing every book about the Stones except his and Marianne Faithfull's and decrying the inconsistency of critical appreciation of the record through the years, though it must be said that said appreciations are indeed annoyingly muddled and inconsistent. ( )

Terrible. Learned almost nothing, except that Mick Jagger is apparently still a prick. ( )

By 1971, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Janis Joplin were dead and Jim Morrison soon would be. Equally troubled, the Rolling Stones, those bad boy icons of the era, took their decadent circus to the French Riviera to escape British taxes and record an album. In a slang-filled present tense, Greenfield (Dark Star: An Oral Biography of Jerry Garcia) gives good gossip about the mayhem that ensued at the Villa Nellcote, the palatial mansion—and supposed former Gestapo headquarters—that Keith Richards rented as his getaway. Greenfield tells of who slept with whom, Keith's outlaw antics and the massive amounts of drugs consumed. The central story, however, is the struggle between Keith and Mick Jagger, who was increasingly drawn to high society, typified by his marriage to Bianca Perez-Mora. A who's who of celebs passed through Nellcote that summer, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono and Gram Parsons. In the last analysis, it's amazing that the Stones managed to record an album at all, but Exile on Main Street may well be their greatest. Greenberg's writing is cliched at times, but his account is energetic. In the end, he takes sides (Keith's mostly) and settles scores, but that only ups the entertainment value. (Nov.) ( )

I am a big Stones fan, and Exile is my favorite album. I saw this in the store and picked it up on impulse. I have also read several other behind the scenes books about the Rolling Stones, as well as auto/biographies about several members. That said there is nothing in this book that is new or even very insightful.

In the realm of other works about the band this book is probably below average. It is very thin in terms of pages and content. The organization is poor, with the narrative hoping around before during and after the events around the recording of the album. It is also more about the atmosphere and very little about the actual album, recording, or musicianship. It reads as though it was 'as told to' through several layers.

The author also gets cute by addressing the audience, and bringing in literary quotes and allusions. As near as I can tell they are used as a sleight of hand to try to stop the reader from asking: how do you know this, who told you this, where you there ? At times it is hard to tell if someone is being quoted or paraphrased or if the author is presenting information from the narrative. He does use the cover of 'Stone's Insiders' to present information from people who don't want to be named, but many times it is just too vague where the information is coming from, and who is speaking.

Through out the book he champions Keith and ridicules Mick, which is a pretty tired interpretation. He describes something and then imposes his own interpretation, all without explaining who he is to the Stones, and was he there. This is his second book about them, apparently he went on tour with them once, but that hardly qualifies him for the role he assumes. He takes the current attitude of some that since they are old they should be denigrated.

The book ends with information about the present day, and the Stones, but it seems to fizzle. Almost as though he really doesn't have anything to say about the Stones or Exile, and is just looking for a way out. Not terrible, and not a hatchet job, but very mediocre. Also the writing is very rough, he lacks skill. ( )