To Ease My Troubled Mind: The Authorized Unauthorized History of Billy Childish [Hardcover]

Compulsively readable and hugely inspiring, Kesslers book is an overdue tribute to a man who not only contains multitudes but projects them relentlessly into the world. Billy Childish, he of the extravagant moustache, is not a household name, but he was known as a high priest of underground music and art scenes. In this unusual collage of prose, oral history, telephone conversations between author and artist, and correspondence, Kessler creates as whole a portrait of the elusive Childish as we are likely to get. Kessler calls him the UKs most prolific creative forcea painter, poet, photographer, musician, memoirist, and novelist who is in constant production of the goods . . . Always the outsider, Childish has done what he wanted to do without succumbing to popular taste or bowing to fickle trends. An unconventional history of an unconventional artist. A portrait of a man as fascinating as he is flawed, someone who is committed to exposing truths about himself while creating all sorts of fabrications . . . Kesslers detached, freewheeling biography is ultimately about someone who, for better or worse, has unquestionably done it his way. This is a wild, frank, and yet friendly biography of the musician, artist, poet, and writer . . . Funny, sad, and uplifting in equal proportionsyou cant read it without seeking out an album or twenty. An engrossing tale of someone following their own path . . . whose artworks now change hands for serious money, and is feted by the very institutions and publications that previously dismissed him. The book is not a conventional biography. It was done at Childishs suggestion, with his cooperation, on the basis that he would never have to read it. [Childish is] the UKs most prolific creative forcepainter, poet, musician, publisher, memoirist, and novelist. A revered cult figure whose prolific output in the fields of painting, writing, and music have never failed to enlighten, annoy, and confuse in equal measure . . . WlƒE