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Going into the City: Portrait of a Critic as a Young Man

by Robert Christgau
Dey St: HarperCollins. 2015. 384p. ISBN 9780062238795. $27.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062238818. MUSIC
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Artists draw on a variety of influences to create their works. With this title, longtime rock critic Christgau uses the memoir format successfully, revealing the influences on his career as a "professional appreciator"—to borrow a phrase from High Fidelity. A book that nods to James Joyce in its title has a lot to live up to. But Christgau—like Jonathan Lethem in Fear of Music or Chuck Klosterman in Fargo Rock City—dives right in, starting in Queens, his parents' birthplace, and eventually ending up in the Lower East Side, where he honed his editing and writing chops at the Village Voice for 37 years, 32 of them as chief music critic. The memoir, loquacious at turns, is actually a love poem to his wife, set to some of the biggest music and cultural moments of the 20th century.
VERDICT Christgau is a critic's critic and a music aficionado. This one is a must-have for those interested in music, journalism, pop culture, and U.S. history. [See Prepub Alert, 8/4/14.]
Reviewed by Stacie Williams, Lexington P.L., KY , Mar 15, 2015
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