Everything Is An Afterthought

What happened to Paul Nelson? In the '60s, he pioneered rock & roll criticism with a first-person style of writing that would later be popularized by the likes of Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer as “New Journalism.” As co-founding editor of The Little Sandy Review and managing editor of Sing Out!, he’d already established himself, to use his friend Bob Dylan’s words, as “a folk-music scholar”; but when Dylan went electric in 1965, Nelson went with him. During a five-year detour at Mercury Records in the early 1970s, Nelson signed the New York Dolls to their first recording contract, then settled back down to writing criticism at Rolling Stone as the last in a great tradition of record-review editors that included Jon Landau, Dave Marsh, and Greil Marcus. Famously championing the early careers of artists like Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Rod Stewart, Neil Young, and Warren Zevon, Nelson not only wrote about them but often befriended them. Never one to be pigeonholed, he was also one of punk rock’s first stateside mainstream proponents, embracing the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. But in 1982, he walked away from it all — Rolling Stone, his friends, and rock & roll. By the time he died in his New York City apartment in 2006 at the age of seventy — a week passing before anybody discovered his body — almost everything he’d written had been relegated to back issues of old music magazines. How could a man whose writing had been so highly regarded have fallen so quickly from our collective memory? With Paul Nelson’s posthumous blessing, Kevin Avery spent four years researching and writing Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writing of Paul Nelson. This unique anthology-biography compiles Nelson’s best works (some of it previously unpublished) while also providing a vivid account of his private and public lives. Avery interviewed almost 100 of Paul Nelson’s friends, family, and colleagues, including several of the artists about whom he’d written.

What happened to Paul Nelson? In the '60s, he pioneered rock & roll criticism with a first-person style of writing that would later be popularized by the likes of Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer as “New Journalism.” As co-founding editor of The Little Sandy Review and managing editor of Sing Out!, he’d already established himself, to use his friend Bob Dylan’s words, as “a folk-music scholar”; but when Dylan went electric in 1965, Nelson went with him. During a five-year detour at Mercury Records in the early 1970s, Nelson signed the New York Dolls to their first recording contract, then settled back down to writing criticism at Rolling Stone as the last in a great tradition of record-review editors that included Jon Landau, Dave Marsh, and Greil Marcus. Famously championing the early careers of artists like Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Rod Stewart, Neil Young, and Warren Zevon, Nelson not only wrote about them but often befriended them. Never one to be pigeonholed, he was also one of punk rock’s first stateside mainstream proponents, embracing the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. But in 1982, he walked away from it all — Rolling Stone, his friends, and rock & roll. By the time he died in his New York City apartment in 2006 at the age of seventy — a week passing before anybody discovered his body — almost everything he’d written had been relegated to back issues of old music magazines. How could a man whose writing had been so highly regarded have fallen so quickly from our collective memory? With Paul Nelson’s posthumous blessing, Kevin Avery spent four years researching and writing Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writing of Paul Nelson. This unique anthology-biography compiles Nelson’s best works (some of it previously unpublished) while also providing a vivid account of his private and public lives. Avery interviewed almost 100 of Paul Nelson’s friends, family, and colleagues, including several of the artists about whom he’d written.

The Afterthought brings back into focus the psychedelic sixties in all of their purple-haze glory, as seen through the eyes of legendary west coast music promoter and entrepreneur Jerry Kruz. Using the historical posters as a timeline, Kruz's recollections are a celebration of the resiliency of Woodstock-era arts and culture and foundational musical acts like the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Steve Miller, The Collectors (Chilliwack), Tom Northcott Trio, Country Joe & the Fish and many more. Complete with selected discographies and band biographies for many of the musical acts included in the book, The Afterthought is illustrated throughout with selections from the folk-inspired and psychedelia-fuelled artwork of legendary artists Bob Masse and Frank Lewis.

Long considered lost, these extensive interviews between legendary Rolling Stone journalist Paul Nelson and Clint Eastwood were discovered after Nelson's death in 2006. Editor: Kevin Avery's writing has appeared in publications as diverse as Mississippi Review, Penthouse, Weber Studies, and Salt Lake magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and stepdaughter. His first book, Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson, is published by Fantagraphics Books. Foreword: Jonathan Lethem is one of the most acclaimed American novelists of his generation. His books include Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, and Chronic City. His essays about James Brown and Bob Dylan have appeared in Rolling Stone. He lives in Claremont, California.

A collection of essays from the author of Same-Sexy Marriage. “A painfully honest but beautiful journey . . . Heartfelt and hopeful” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). This is a daughter’s story. In Small Fires, Julie Marie Wade recreates the landscape of her childhood with a lacemaker’s care, then turns that precise attention on herself. There are floating tea lights in the bath, coddled blossoms in the garden, and a mother straddling her teenage daughter’s back, astringent in hand, to better scrub her not-quite-presentable pores. And throughout, Wade traces this lost world with the same devotion as her mother among her award-winning roses. Small Fires is essay as elegy, but it is also essay as parsing, reconciliation, and celebration, all in the attempt to answer the question—what have you given up in order to become who you are? “Reckoning with imperfect parents—what they owe us and what we owe them—is one of the chief tasks of these essays, which form a kind of pointillistic autobiography. Another is the construction of memories, even imagined, in which understanding and forgiveness trump judgment and hate . . . Throughout, the writing is sharp, surprising, and precise.” —The Boston Globe “In Small Fires, Julie Marie Wade . . . considers family and memory with a poetic eye and unabashed tongue . . . [It] is Julie Marie Wade’s story, but the collection opens onto something universal—how we individuate from our family, how we become ourselves, what we carry forward from our pasts and make our own.” —Lambda Literary “A book of essays that left me transfixed and transformed through brilliant prose and ideas. It’s like finding a time capsule of nostalgic treasures.” —Brevity

A true story of obsessive love turning to obsessive hate, Give Me Everything You Have chronicles the author's strange and harrowing ordeal at the hands of a former student, a self-styled "verbal terrorist," who began trying, in her words, to "ruin him." Hate mail, online postings, and public accusations of plagiarism and sexual misconduct were her weapons of choice and, as with more conventional terrorist weapons, proved remarkably difficult to combat. James Lasdun's account, while terrifying, is told with compassion and humor, and brilliantly succeeds in turning a highly personal story into a profound meditation on subjects as varied as madness, race, Middle East politics, and the meaning of honor and reputation in the Internet age.

This book is meant to open up the world of ideas to a new mode of thinking and looking at the planet. The pages of this book reveal the existential values that are at interplay within the universe. It depicts the elements that are required for a book on love to address. And in so doing, includes each facet that brings love into unison with the teachings of divine conception. It begs you to deny the teachings of the past, and will teach you to master the ways of God. It urges you to revert to the simplicity of a spiritual and divine relationship, bringing all to wholeness, and love. It asserts the ethos that love is all there is, and flows through all things to create the bond of love.

Nancy’s stories were born from her prayer journals, often her cry for help and healing knowing Scripture was her only anchor. A pure honest collection full of hope. Nancy’s encouraging words and scripture references will leap from these pages and into your heart. Life is uncertain, and it is guaranteed too NOT be easy. Determined to never give up, Nancy shares what it means to be kept in the Love of Jesus and sustained by His Word. Precious memories line these pages expressing a fierce, unstoppable love and the impact each person contributed to Nancy’s life and to the Work Jesus had begun in her. Nancy’s Aunt Donna and Uncle CA Wilson who love to hear her stories made her promise to share them with others. It was her Aunt Donna that said, “Oh Nancy. Sweetie, your stories help me and your uncle, and they will help others too. You must have them published and be an encouragement to others. We all need an Aunt Donna to take us out of our comfort zone and to trust the Lord. We thank Aunt Donna that we can open these pages and see how the loving. kindness of Jesus spills out as Nancy shares from her heart. Oh, the Peace He gives as we choose to trust and obey Him, “Come What May”, all honor and glory belong to Him.