To Hell and Back - Softcover

Loaf, Meat; Meatloaf

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060988762 ISBN 13: 9780060988760

Publisher: HarperEntertainment, 2000

Synopsis

Meat Loaf was rock music's unlikeliest success: a 300-pound white artist signed to Motown records.  He boostrapped his way out of hell, fleeing an abusive past, overcoming the scorn and skepticism of nearly everyone, and--through raw determination--he beat all odds and conquered the world.

Twice.

To Hell and Back is his story.

About this title

Review:

Who'd have guessed that the man credited with bringing rock & roll to a whole new level of garishness would pen such a vastly entertaining, funny, touching, and plainspoken autobiography? But Meat Loaf (christened Marvin Lee Aday) and coauthor David Dalton succeed by skillfully modifying the tongue-in-cheek hyperbole and the bombastic befuddlement of the man's Wagner-crossed-with-the-Shangri-Las music to fit the printed page. Meat Loaf grew up in Dallas, Texas, the son of a schoolteacher (she penned a locally popular textbook on Communism) and an alcoholic cop (who happened to be an acquaintance of Jack Ruby). Meat--he earned the nickname early on--got in touch with his theatrical side as a teen and was soon off on his haphazard way, stumbling from misadventure to misadventure, and taking more than his fair share of knocks along the way. (Literally--he's suffered 17 concussions thus far, which provide an oddly effective narrative device.) He lurched into the middle of the JFK assassination scene, picked up a hitchhiking Charlie Manson, earned a part in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and recorded one of the most successful albums of the '70s, Bat out of Hell. His ample fame inevitably tied to his ample frame, Meat Loaf quickly became something of an amped-up Fatty Arbuckle. Then came the colossal excesses and flop follow-ups, capped by a rebound called--you guessed it--Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell. Yes, it's a familiar framework, but the telling of Meat Loaf's rise, fall, and recovery is never anything less than fresh and absorbing. --Steven Stolder

About the Author:

Meat Loaf has sold more than 50 million records worldwide and appeared in films such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Mighty, Crazy in Alabama, and The Fight Club.

David Dalton is the award-winning author of biographies on such pop icons as James Dean, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison. His most recent book is El Sid: Saint Vicious. He is medium-sized.

Meat Loaf has sold more than 50 million records worldwide and appeared in films such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Mighty, Crazy in Alabama, and The Fight Club.

David Dalton is the award-winning author of biographies on such pop icons as James Dean, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison. His most recent book is El Sid: Saint Vicious. He is medium-sized.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperEntertainment
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0060988762
• ISBN 13: 9780060988760
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304