Rodale Publishing
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Web-Exclusive Book Review
Catch a Wave
By Peter Ames Carlin (Rodale, July 2006)
Review by Wendi Kaufman, May 2006
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I had to wonder if Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall & Redemption of the
Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, written by former People magazine writer Peter
Ames Carlin, could really tell me anything new about Brian Wilson. It's not
that I am a Beach Boys aficionado, but Wilson's story has been hard to
miss; it's been covered by the tabloids, prime-time news programs, and even
a TV miniseries—The Beach Boys: An American Family aired in 2000. I had
heard all about the overbearing, abusive father, Brian's mental illness,
and even about the strange therapist who came to control Brian's life.
Yet, after reading Carlin's book, it turns out that what I didn't
know about the Beach Boys could fill a book. Which is precisely what Carlin has
done. This comprehensive and detailed account of the Wilson saga is a step
above the standard rock bio. Here is a book that can be read on many levels,
including cultural history, psychological study, or even as a crash course in
ethnomusicology. As Carlin charts the turbulent story of the band and the
intricacies of the Wilson family dynamic, a clear picture of the backdrop of
national turmoil and unrest emerges, as the times they were a'-
changing.
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When the Wilson brothers Brian, Carl, and Dennis, and cousin Mike Love,
broke into the scene as teens in 1962, it wasn't just their fresh faces and
tight harmonies that caught our attention; it was the dreamy romantic vision of
California beach life, a world of perfect waves, pretty girls, and fast cars
that cast a cool breeze into Middle America's stuffy landlocked lives.
So what if most of the Beach Boys couldn't really surf, or if they
came from a blue-collar industrial L.A. suburb? What mattered was the
"journey," Carlin writes, coming across a bit like a Zen master, not
the "destination." It was all about the ride, and with the Beach
Boys, cars and surfboards became "the vehicles of transcendence."
Carlin asks you to think big as he details the themes of "life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness tricked out in metal flake paint and mag
wheels," in "I Get Around."
Carlin may elevate his language when he writes about the music, but Brian
and the band get straightforward, cool-headed coverage. The Wilson patriarch,
Murry, is drawn with dimension and complexity. Yes, he was overbearing,
brooding, and belittling, but he was also the one who fought Capitol Records to
give Brian complete control over the music, and he hand-sold and promoted
records to disc jockeys, distributors, and music stores.
Ultimately, the center of this story is Brian Wilson. As his mental health
buoyed up and down, so went the fate of the band. Here Carlin hits his stride
with an in-depth look, year by year, at Brian, the music, the group, and the
times. We see 1968 as a low point for the country—assassinations, war
protests, racial divides—and also for the band, struggling to find its
place next to Hendrix, The Who, The Doors, and the Rolling Stones.
The 1970s were an even darker period for the band: Dennis succumbed to
alcoholism, Carl spent the second half of the '70s in a drug haze, and by
1981 Mike Love had been married and divorced six times, all before the age of
40. But it was Brian who was hit hardest; he spiraled downward into a miasma of
drug and alcohol abuse. Paranoia, delusions, bouts of extreme anxiety and
mania, followed by deadening depression, were the stuff of daily life.
Early attempts to "cure" Brian failed; a boot camp environment had
been set up to revive Brian's body and spirit and bring him back to the
land of the living. But in the end he would always slip back, a little worse
each time, until finally, he was practically housebound, tipping the scales at
340 pounds, and barely leaving his bed for days.
"For some people the answer seemed all too obvious: Brian was going to
die," Carlin writes. "His family and the Beach Boys—as if you
could find a distinction between those two entities—either felt powerless
to do anything to change his direction, or didn't have the energy to
try."
Enter Dr. Eugene Landy, the shadowy figure who was both savior and
destroyer; a dangerous father figure for Brian. Landy believed in 24-hour
around-the-clock therapy and took complete control of Brian's
"physical, personal, social and sexual environment." Landy saved
Brian's life, but Brian paid a very steep price.
By 1989 the rumor was that Brian either had a stroke or had done too many
illegal substances and was permanently fried. The truth was equally disturbing:
tardive dyskinesia, a neurological condition that develops when the system is
saturated with too many psychotropic drugs—like the ones Landy had been
steadily prescribing for Brian since 1983. In 1992 the Superior Court in Santa
Monica ordered Landy to disentangle himself from Wilson's life permanently.
After being under the thumb of his domineering father, and then later under the
control of Dr. Landy, Brian, just shy of 50, found himself in an unusual
position: free.
It was a long, slow climb back, but the key, the carrot that kept him going,
remained the music. Brian was even able to record a few tracks with his
daughters, Carnie and Wendy. The recordings didn't come to much, but Brian
said the three tracks they did together healed his wounds, as well as theirs.
It should be noted, though, that Carnie and Wendy are barely mentioned. Whether
this is due to Carlin's myopic focus on Brian, or to Brian's complete
uninvolvement with his daughters, is open to question.
Brian's redemption, as promised in the title, does not come in the form
of friends or family but from the enigmatic Smile, the
much-talked-about album that had been languishing for almost 40 years. Finally
released to critical acclaim in 2004, Brian was reintroduced to the world as a
musical visionary. For Carlin, like Brian Wilson, this is the heart and soul of
the book, as it all comes back to the music, and the rest of us are just along
for the ride.
Wendi Kaufman is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post. Her
fiction has been published in literary journals and magazines, including
The New Yorker. She is also the editor of The Happy Booker, a literary blog based in
Washington, D.C.
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