Life (book)
Encyclopedia
Life is a memoir by The Rolling Stones
guitarist Keith Richards
, written with the assistance of journalist James Fox
. Published in October 2010, in hardback, audio and e-book formats, the book chronicles Richards' love of music, charting influences from his mother and maternal grandfather, through his discovery of blues music, the founding of The Rolling Stones, his often turbulent relationship with Mick Jagger
, his involvement with drugs, his relationships with women including Anita Pallenberg
and his wife Patti Hansen
. Richards also released Vintage Vinos
, a compilation of his work with the X-Pensive Winos, at the same time.
It has been reported that publisher Little, Brown and Company
paid an advance of $7.3million, after seeing a ten-page extract. Co-writer James Fox interviewed Richards and his associates over a period of five years to produce the book. Life was generally well received by critics and topped The New York Times
non-fiction list in the first week of release. Some controversy arose over comments Richards made about Mick Jagger, including references to his genitalia.
, Kent
, through to his success with The Rolling Stones and his current life in Connecticut
. His interest in music was triggered by his mother, Doris, who played records by Sarah Vaughan
, Billy Eckstine
and Louis Armstrong
and his maternal grandfather, Augustus Theodore Dupree, a former big band
player, who encouraged him to take up the guitar. In his teens he met up with Mick Jagger
, who he had known in primary school, and discovered that they both shared a love of blues music. In the early 1960s Richards moved into a London flat, shared with Jagger and Brian Jones
. Together with Bill Wyman
, Ian Stewart
and Charlie Watts
, The Rolling Stones were founded in 1962, playing gigs at Ealing Jazz Club
and the Crawdaddy Club
.
The book chronicles Richards's career with the Stones since 1962, following their rise from playing small club gigs to stadium concerts, Richards's drug habits, his arrests and convictions. His relationships with a number of women, including Anita Pallenberg
, Marianne Faithfull
, Ronnie Spector
and Patti Hansen
, whom he married in 1983, are covered in detail. The often difficult partnership between Richards and Jagger is referred to throughout the work and coverage of this has caused much media interest.
Throughout the work, much attention is given to Richards' love of music, his style of playing and chord construction. His non-Stones projects, such as the X-Pensive Winos and recording with the Wingless Angels in Jamaica, as well as collaborations with Chuck Berry
and Gram Parsons
amongst others are covered in some detail.
"Once the manuscript was complete, he [Fox] sat opposite Richards and read the entire book aloud to him ... He turned out to be a really natural editor. He cut according to the sound of it." Rebecca Dana of The Daily Beast
said of Life that it "covers all the bases: sex, drugs, guitar riffs, the size of Mick Jagger’s endowment. It also digs down into softer spots, including Richards’ tumultuous relationship with Anita Pallenberg and the death of their son. The book, which already seems to have earned a place in the admittedly small canon of genuinely great rock lit, is dishy but not lurid, technical but not wonky. Richards’ voice, filtered through Fox’s brain, is so relentlessly endearing, no less a critic than Maureen Dowd has declared the prince of darkness a "consummate gentleman." Time
's Richard Corliss
says "Confessional autobiographies, unless they're by William Boroughs, tend to have inspirational endings: salvation through strong will or a good woman. Life has both."
in the United Kingdom
and by Little, Brown and Company
in the United States
on 26 October 2010. It debuted, and spent two weeks, at the top position on The New York Times hard-back non-fiction bestsellers' list. It spent six weeks on the USA Today
s best sellers' list, peaking at the third position.
A 22.5-hour audio book version, read by Richards, Johnny Depp
and musician Joe Hurley
, was also published. The book is available as a digital download and has also been published in e-book
format. A paperback version was published in May 2011.
Coinciding with the publication of Life, Richards released Vintage Vinos
, a compilation album featuring tracks from three albums by his band, the X-Pensive Winos, as well as some previously unreleased material. The BBC
television arts programme The Culture Show
broadcast a special on 28 October 2010, consisting of a 60-minute interview with Keith Richards, conducted by Andrew Graham Dixon. The programme covered "his childhood in Dartford, his passion for music and the decade that catapulted The Rolling Stones from back-room blues boys to one of the greatest rock 'n' roll bands in the world". It included contributions from co-writer James Fox
, Dick Taylor
, former Stones PA Georgia Bergman and Bobby Keys
and covered the same territory as the book. The programme was repeated on 12 November 2010.
wrote, "Life offers much more than vicarious thrills. It captures the true spirit of rock and roll, the nitty-gritty of life on the road, and just what it feels like to be a heroin addict who doesn’t know where his next fix is coming from. It also movingly captures Richards’ extraordinary love of music – an even more powerful addiction for him than smack – and perhaps more surprisingly, his manifest decency as a human being." Jim Fusilli of the Wall Street Journal said that "Mr. Richards writes with disarming introspection about his childhood, family and fame. And it's quite likely that no rock musician has ever written so keenly about the joys of making music. With a warm sense of humor and willingness to share his grief, Mr. Richards in "Life" defies almost every public perception about him." In The Independent
, John Walsh commented, "He tells it with complete, reckless, disclosure. Sometimes it sounds like a man ranting into a tape machine; sometimes, in the tidier and more reflective sections, you can detect the hand of his co-writer, James (White Mischief) Fox. But the watchwords of this book are honesty, confessionalism, telling it straight."
The New Yorker
said of Life, "Half book, half brand extension, it’s an entertaining, rambling monologue, a slurry romp through the life of a man who knew every pleasure, denied himself nothing, and never paid the price." The New York Times said, "Mr. Richards, now 66, writes with uncommon candor and immediacy. He’s decided that he’s going to tell it as he remembers it, and helped along with notebooks, letters and a diary he once kept, he remembers almost everything."
The popular press focussed on the relationship between Jagger and Richards. Graham Smith in the Daily Mail
said, "Unsurprisingly, The Rolling Stones guitarist isn't entirely complimentary towards his childhood friend. But nobody was expecting him to decimate Jagger's status as a legendary ladies' man by revealing the singer has a "tiny todger", before quoting Richards, "Because I love the man dearly; I'm still his mate. But he makes it very difficult to be his friend." Tom Bryant in The Daily Mirror
wrote, "Keith says his songwriting partner 'started to become unbearable' in the early 80s, adding: 'I think Mick thinks I belong to him but I haven't been to his dressing room in 20 years.'"
for 2010—Audiobook of the Year and Best Biography/Memoir. Additionally, the audiobook Life was voted Amazon’s #1 Audiobook of the Year for 2010. Life received the 2011 Norman Mailer Prize
for biography.
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
guitarist Keith Richards
Keith Richards
Keith Richards is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine said Richards had created "rock's greatest single body of riffs", and placed him as the "10th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs written by Richards and songwriting...
, written with the assistance of journalist James Fox
James Fox (journalist)
James Fox is a British journalist best known for his novel White Mischief, and for co-authoring Life, the best-selling memoir of Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards.- Life and career :...
. Published in October 2010, in hardback, audio and e-book formats, the book chronicles Richards' love of music, charting influences from his mother and maternal grandfather, through his discovery of blues music, the founding of The Rolling Stones, his often turbulent relationship with Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
, his involvement with drugs, his relationships with women including Anita Pallenberg
Anita Pallenberg
Anita Pallenberg is an Italian-born actress, model, and fashion designer. She was the romantic partner of Rolling Stones multi-instrumentalist and guitarist Brian Jones and later the partner of the guitarist of the same band Keith Richards, from 1967 to 1979, by whom she has two surviving...
and his wife Patti Hansen
Patti Hansen
Patricia "Patti" Elvina Hansen is an American model and actress.-Early life and career:Hansen, who is of Norwegian ancestry, was born and raised in the Tottenville section of Staten Island, New York. The youngest of six children, Hansen was discovered by photographer Peter Gert at age 14...
. Richards also released Vintage Vinos
Vintage Vinos
Vintage Vinos is a compilation album by Keith Richards, released on 2 November 2010. The album features remastered solo and X-Pensive Winos tracks from Talk is Cheap, Live at the Hollywood Palladium, December 15, 1988, Main Offender, and "Hurricane", a special bonus song...
, a compilation of his work with the X-Pensive Winos, at the same time.
It has been reported that publisher Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company is a publishing house established by Charles Coffin Little and his partner, James Brown. Since 2006 it has been a constituent unit of Hachette Book Group USA.-19th century:...
paid an advance of $7.3million, after seeing a ten-page extract. Co-writer James Fox interviewed Richards and his associates over a period of five years to produce the book. Life was generally well received by critics and topped The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
non-fiction list in the first week of release. Some controversy arose over comments Richards made about Mick Jagger, including references to his genitalia.
Synopsis
Life is a memoir covering Keith Richards's life, starting with his childhood in DartfordDartford
Dartford is the principal town in the borough of Dartford. It is situated in the northwest corner of Kent, England, east south-east of central London....
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, through to his success with The Rolling Stones and his current life in Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. His interest in music was triggered by his mother, Doris, who played records by Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
, Billy Eckstine
Billy Eckstine
William Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...
and Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
and his maternal grandfather, Augustus Theodore Dupree, a former big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
player, who encouraged him to take up the guitar. In his teens he met up with Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
, who he had known in primary school, and discovered that they both shared a love of blues music. In the early 1960s Richards moved into a London flat, shared with Jagger and Brian Jones
Brian Jones
Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....
. Together with Bill Wyman
Bill Wyman
Bill Wyman is an English musician best known as the bass guitarist for the English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1992. Since 1997, he has recorded and toured with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings...
, Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart (musician)
Ian Andrew Robert Stewart was a Scottish keyboardist, co-founder of The Rolling Stones and inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...
and Charlie Watts
Charlie Watts
Charles Robert "Charlie" Watts is an English drummer, best known as a member of The Rolling Stones. He is also the leader of a jazz band, a record producer, commercial artist, and horse breeder.-Early life:...
, The Rolling Stones were founded in 1962, playing gigs at Ealing Jazz Club
Ealing Jazz Club
The Ealing Jazz Club at 42 A The Broadway, Ealing W5, opened in January 1959. Situated in a basement below an Aerated Bread Company tea shop, opposite Ealing Broadway station...
and the Crawdaddy Club
Crawdaddy Club
The Crawdaddy Club was a 1960s music venue in Richmond, Surrey, England. Several other seminal British blues and rhythm and blues acts also played there....
.
The book chronicles Richards's career with the Stones since 1962, following their rise from playing small club gigs to stadium concerts, Richards's drug habits, his arrests and convictions. His relationships with a number of women, including Anita Pallenberg
Anita Pallenberg
Anita Pallenberg is an Italian-born actress, model, and fashion designer. She was the romantic partner of Rolling Stones multi-instrumentalist and guitarist Brian Jones and later the partner of the guitarist of the same band Keith Richards, from 1967 to 1979, by whom she has two surviving...
, Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....
, Ronnie Spector
Ronnie Spector
Veronica Yvette "Ronnie" Spector is an American rock and roll and popular music vocalist, and was the lead singer of the 1960s hit-making girl group, The Ronettes, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. She is known as the "original bad girl of rock and roll."-Personal...
and Patti Hansen
Patti Hansen
Patricia "Patti" Elvina Hansen is an American model and actress.-Early life and career:Hansen, who is of Norwegian ancestry, was born and raised in the Tottenville section of Staten Island, New York. The youngest of six children, Hansen was discovered by photographer Peter Gert at age 14...
, whom he married in 1983, are covered in detail. The often difficult partnership between Richards and Jagger is referred to throughout the work and coverage of this has caused much media interest.
Throughout the work, much attention is given to Richards' love of music, his style of playing and chord construction. His non-Stones projects, such as the X-Pensive Winos and recording with the Wingless Angels in Jamaica, as well as collaborations with Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
and Gram Parsons
Gram Parsons
Gram Parsons was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist. Parsons is best known for his work within the country genre; he also mixed blues, folk, and rock to create what he called "Cosmic American Music"...
amongst others are covered in some detail.
Production
James Fox, journalist and author of the non-fiction book White Mischief: The Murder of Lord Erroll, was credited, along with Keith Richards, as co-author. He had previously interviewed Richards in 1973 and the pair had been friends since then. Reportedly, $7.3 million was paid for the work in 2007, "on the basis of a 10-page excerpt". Fox spent "hundreds of hours" with Richards at his Caribbean home, and also in the United Kingdom, to gather material for the book. He interviewed Richards at length and also talked to many associates. Fox said of Richards, "I'd have to catch him like a salmon." The interviews were conducted seated at a table, but the two were not opposite each other. Richards always played music, so Fox provided him with a lapel microphone. The subject matter was not handled chronologically; Fox allowed his subject to mentally "dart about". "Some sessions lasted hours and some, dealing with the more painful parts of Richards’ life, lasted just minutes." The project took five years to complete."Once the manuscript was complete, he [Fox] sat opposite Richards and read the entire book aloud to him ... He turned out to be a really natural editor. He cut according to the sound of it." Rebecca Dana of The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast
The Daily Beast is an American news reporting and opinion website founded and published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker as well as the short-lived Talk Magazine. The Daily Beast was launched on October 6, 2008, and is owned by IAC...
said of Life that it "covers all the bases: sex, drugs, guitar riffs, the size of Mick Jagger’s endowment. It also digs down into softer spots, including Richards’ tumultuous relationship with Anita Pallenberg and the death of their son. The book, which already seems to have earned a place in the admittedly small canon of genuinely great rock lit, is dishy but not lurid, technical but not wonky. Richards’ voice, filtered through Fox’s brain, is so relentlessly endearing, no less a critic than Maureen Dowd has declared the prince of darkness a "consummate gentleman." Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
's Richard Corliss
Richard Corliss
Richard Nelson Corliss is a writer for Time magazine who focuses on movies, with the occasional article on music or sports. Corliss is the former editor-in-chief of Film Comment...
says "Confessional autobiographies, unless they're by William Boroughs, tend to have inspirational endings: salvation through strong will or a good woman. Life has both."
Publication
Life was published by Weidenfeld & NicolsonWeidenfeld & Nicolson
Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd is a British publisher of fiction and reference books. It is a division of the Orion Publishing Group.-History:...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and by Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company is a publishing house established by Charles Coffin Little and his partner, James Brown. Since 2006 it has been a constituent unit of Hachette Book Group USA.-19th century:...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on 26 October 2010. It debuted, and spent two weeks, at the top position on The New York Times hard-back non-fiction bestsellers' list. It spent six weeks on the USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
s best sellers' list, peaking at the third position.
A 22.5-hour audio book version, read by Richards, Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
and musician Joe Hurley
Joe Hurley
Joe Hurley is a singer, songwriter, actor, playwright and voice-over artist. He leads the critically lauded bands Joe Hurley & The Gents and Joe Hurley & Rogue’s March. He is the founder and curator of the Allstar Irish Rock Revue, a musical-literary homage to “The Great Irish Songbook”,...
, was also published. The book is available as a digital download and has also been published in e-book
E-book
An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
format. A paperback version was published in May 2011.
Coinciding with the publication of Life, Richards released Vintage Vinos
Vintage Vinos
Vintage Vinos is a compilation album by Keith Richards, released on 2 November 2010. The album features remastered solo and X-Pensive Winos tracks from Talk is Cheap, Live at the Hollywood Palladium, December 15, 1988, Main Offender, and "Hurricane", a special bonus song...
, a compilation album featuring tracks from three albums by his band, the X-Pensive Winos, as well as some previously unreleased material. The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television arts programme The Culture Show
The Culture Show
The Culture Show is a weekly BBC Two Arts magazine programme. It is broadcast in the UK on Thursday nights at 7pm, focusing on the best of the week's arts and culture news, covering books, art, film, architecture, music, visual fashion and the performing arts...
broadcast a special on 28 October 2010, consisting of a 60-minute interview with Keith Richards, conducted by Andrew Graham Dixon. The programme covered "his childhood in Dartford, his passion for music and the decade that catapulted The Rolling Stones from back-room blues boys to one of the greatest rock 'n' roll bands in the world". It included contributions from co-writer James Fox
James Fox (journalist)
James Fox is a British journalist best known for his novel White Mischief, and for co-authoring Life, the best-selling memoir of Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards.- Life and career :...
, Dick Taylor
Dick Taylor
Richard Clifford 'Dick' Taylor is an English musician who was an early bass guitarist for The Rolling Stones. He left to become an art student at Sidcup Art College and while there formed The Pretty Things in September 1963...
, former Stones PA Georgia Bergman and Bobby Keys
Bobby Keys
Bobby Keys is an American saxophone player, and has performed with other musicians as a member of one of the notable horn sections of the 1970s. He appears on albums by The Rolling Stones, The Who, Harry Nilsson, Delaney Bramlett, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, Eric Clapton and Joe...
and covered the same territory as the book. The programme was repeated on 12 November 2010.
Reception
The book was generally well received by critics, with several commenting on the honesty of the work. Charles Spencer of The Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
wrote, "Life offers much more than vicarious thrills. It captures the true spirit of rock and roll, the nitty-gritty of life on the road, and just what it feels like to be a heroin addict who doesn’t know where his next fix is coming from. It also movingly captures Richards’ extraordinary love of music – an even more powerful addiction for him than smack – and perhaps more surprisingly, his manifest decency as a human being." Jim Fusilli of the Wall Street Journal said that "Mr. Richards writes with disarming introspection about his childhood, family and fame. And it's quite likely that no rock musician has ever written so keenly about the joys of making music. With a warm sense of humor and willingness to share his grief, Mr. Richards in "Life" defies almost every public perception about him." In The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, John Walsh commented, "He tells it with complete, reckless, disclosure. Sometimes it sounds like a man ranting into a tape machine; sometimes, in the tidier and more reflective sections, you can detect the hand of his co-writer, James (White Mischief) Fox. But the watchwords of this book are honesty, confessionalism, telling it straight."
The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
said of Life, "Half book, half brand extension, it’s an entertaining, rambling monologue, a slurry romp through the life of a man who knew every pleasure, denied himself nothing, and never paid the price." The New York Times said, "Mr. Richards, now 66, writes with uncommon candor and immediacy. He’s decided that he’s going to tell it as he remembers it, and helped along with notebooks, letters and a diary he once kept, he remembers almost everything."
The popular press focussed on the relationship between Jagger and Richards. Graham Smith in the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
said, "Unsurprisingly, The Rolling Stones guitarist isn't entirely complimentary towards his childhood friend. But nobody was expecting him to decimate Jagger's status as a legendary ladies' man by revealing the singer has a "tiny todger", before quoting Richards, "Because I love the man dearly; I'm still his mate. But he makes it very difficult to be his friend." Tom Bryant in The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror is a British national daily tabloid newspaper which was founded in 1903. Twice in its history, from 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was changed to read simply The Mirror, which is how the paper is often referred to in popular parlance. It had an...
wrote, "Keith says his songwriting partner 'started to become unbearable' in the early 80s, adding: 'I think Mick thinks I belong to him but I haven't been to his dressing room in 20 years.'"
Awards
The audiobook Life won two prestigious Audie AwardsAudie Awards
The Audie Awards are annually bestowed annually in the USA for outstanding audiobooks. The Audies have been granted by the Audio Publishers Association, a not-for-profit trade organization, since 1996. The nominees are announced each year in January, and the winners are announced at a gala banquet...
for 2010—Audiobook of the Year and Best Biography/Memoir. Additionally, the audiobook Life was voted Amazon’s #1 Audiobook of the Year for 2010. Life received the 2011 Norman Mailer Prize
Norman Mailer Prize
The Norman Mailer Prize or Mailer Prize is an American literary award established in 2009 by The Norman Mailer Center and The Norman Mailer Writers Colony to celebrate writers and their works...
for biography.