Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU (08/27/90)
Really-From: nrc@cbema.att.com (Neal R Caldwell, Ii) > Really-From: vecvax!ken@Sun.COM (Ken Stuart) > > Really-Really-From: ...sun!rtech!vecvax!ken (Ken Stuart) > > Hello, > Can anyone summarize the origin and availability of books on > Kate Bush [fans] by the Vermorels? I saw a posting here recently about > one, but have been unable to find any reference at all to them in the > USA (are they UK only, perhaps?). > PS e-mail to really-really address, not the really one. posting is > more reliable, though, and it lets everyone know. > PPS post reviews of the books, too, if you like. I bought a copy of the "The Secret History of Kate Bush (& the Strange Art of Pop)" by Fred Vermorel back when I didn't know any better. (The title is from memory since I don't have the book right now but I think that's right.) Originally I thought this was a sort of biography of Kate who I knew very little about at the time. Vermorel didn't do much to change that. Vermorel attempts to trace Kate's ancestry back several hundred years, keeping an eye out the entire time for anything even remotely seamy. The result is a book that is half bizarre tabloid genealogy and half Vermorel's pompous ramblings about his ideas on the nature of pop as art and pop stardom. In short: it's rubbish. I believe that this was published in the U.K. and is probably available as an import. I don't know if it's still in print or not. If you're still interested I can check and see who the publisher was. The only thing I know about other Vermorel books is that in "The Secret History..." he seems almost apologetic about some of the things he said in his previous book ("Princess of Suburbia"?) about Kate. Vermorel strikes me as a pompous jerk and I wouldn't recommend buying any of his books. He seems to have some sort of obsession with Kate that his (apparently) tremendous ego won't permit him to deal with. I'm sure that there are folks that know a lot more about this than I but for some reason the Love-Hounds gurus are being quiet right now. Maybe someone can find something in the archives about these books and repost it. "Don't drive too slowly." Richard Caldwell att!cbnews!nrc nrc@cbnews.att.com