I Am Brian Wilson
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| Author | Brian Wilson, Ben Greenman |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Autobiography, memoir |
| Published | Da Capo Press |
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Publication date
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October 11, 2016 |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | |
I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir is an autobiographic memoir of American songwriter-musician Brian Wilson, co-founder of the Beach Boys. It was written through several months of interviews with ghostwriter Ben Greenman. The book was published by Da Capo Press on October 11, 2016, coinciding one month after the release of co-founder Mike Love's autobiography: Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy.I Am Brian Wilson supersedes Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story, Wilson's disowned autobiography published in 1991.
The memoir was announced in April 2013, reported to be written with journalist Jason Fine, published by Coronet Books, and given a 2015 release date. While Wilson's website stated that he "will describe for the first time the epic highs and lows of his life", The Guardian noted that Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story had covered many of the same topics mentioned by the site. However, the 1991 book is considered "controversial" in Wilson lore, and predates his solo resurgence of the 2000s.
In June 2015, Wilson reported: "One guy crapped out on me, so I’m doing it with somebody else. It has to be done." In February 2016, it was reported that the book was "years in the making and [has] already seen at least one co-author hired and fired". Wilson said that the book was about "three-quarters" finished and that it was being written with help from friend Ray Lawlor. He likened the writing process to therapy, saying: "There are a lot of memories that go along with my book. I have to take the good memories with the bad memories."
The book was ultimately completed with New York-based writer Ben Greenman. According to Wilson, the process involved many telephone interviews over the course of eight months, each lasting about 40 minutes. Greenman then put together the book. When asked how he dealt with his inability to recollect some events, Wilson responded: "Well, the book needed to be factual. We did the movie [2015's Love & Mercy] first, which was factual—but it had parts of it that weren't actually as factual—but doing it helped my memory. So that helped with writing the book, which is almost all factual. I hope people can relate to it because none of it's fiction, as wild as some of it seems. It's fact!"
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