Comrade Rockstar: The Life and Mystery of Dean Reed, the All-American Boy Who Brought Rock 'n' Roll to the Soviet Union [Paperback]

Ms. Reggie Nadelson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 13, 2006

Dean Reed had one of the strangest careers in the history of popular culture. Failing to gain recognition for his music in his native United States, he achieved celebrity in South America in the early 1960s and then, unbelievably, became the biggest rock star in the Soviet Union, where he was awarded the Lenin Prize and his icons were sold alongside those of Josef Stalin. His albums went gold from Bulgaria to Berlin. He made highly successful movies and, naively earnest, was an unwitting acolyte for socialism; everywhere he went, he was mobbed by his fans. And then, in 1986, at the height of his fame, right after 60 Minutes had devoted a segment to him, finally giving him the recognition he had never attained at home, he drowned in mysterious circumstances in East Berlin.

Drawn magnetically to his story, Reggie Nadelson pursued the mystery of Dean Reed's life and death across America and Eastern Europe, her own journey mirroring his. As she traveled, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union crumbled, and Reed became an increasingly alluring figure, his life an unrepeatable tale of the Cold War world. Encountering the characters-- musicians and DJs, politicians and public figures, lovers and wives--who peopled Reed's life, Nadelson was drawn further and further into a seedy, often hilarious subculture of sex, politics, and rock 'n' roll. Part biography, part memoir and personal journey, Comrade Rockstar is an unforgettable chronicle of an utterly improbable life

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist and thriller writer Nadelson tells the life story of Dean Reed, "the Johnny Cash of Communism," and of her own investigation into Reed's life, in a book that, while always fascinating, has trouble walking the line between memoir and biography. The details—of how Colorado-born Reed lived and sang in South America and the eastern bloc and became a star of Elvis-like proportions there—are relayed in a clear and often captivating manner. When the author opines on her personal journey to discover and understand Reed, the narrative is often awkward ("my metaphors collided and crashed: none of them any good") and the findings are sometimes naïve ("In the end, the Soviets had not wanted to nuke us; they just wanted to listen to our music"). As "a kind of travel book through a now half-lost time and place"—the time being the '60s, the place being the U.S.S.R.—the book is absorbing. And though there are speed bumps (weak images and an oversimplification of complex political events), as the mysteries of Reed's suspicious death begin to unfold toward the end, the author's strengths become apparent, making Reed all the more exciting. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In a strange nexus of politics and pop culture that will never be repeated, Colorado native Reed, possessed of a fair voice, great looks, and a boatload of charisma, became the biggest rock star in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and '80s, although practically no one in the U.S. knew who he was. Here Nadelson, author of the Artie Cohen mystery series, tracks Reed's long, strange trip from all-American farm boy to Hollywood extra to South American political activist, and, finally, to Soviet Union pop and film star. Thousands of Russian kids, crazy for all things American, thronged to his concerts, while the authorities viewed him as the ideal propaganda tool, an American whose politics were identical with those of a Kremlin bureaucrat. His death, a few weeks after being featured in a 1986 60 Minutes segment that drew hate mail from the U.S., was ruled a suicide. Although Nadelson's narrative meanders at times, this is a fascinating story of a man in search of fame who found it in the unlikeliest of places. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company (June 13, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802715559
• ISBN-13: 978-0802715555
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,420,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Disappointing, December 27, 2007

By 

WGS "WGS" (Deep in Central Asia (but from Wisconsin)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Comrade Rockstar: The Life and Mystery of Dean Reed, the All-American Boy Who Brought Rock 'n' Roll to the Soviet Union (Paperback)

I really wanted to like this book, but as it stands it is more about the author's search for Dean Reed than it is about Dean Reed himself. The author could have given more real detail about Reed, but instead she writes about her travels and the folks she meets along the way. You can read pages, almost chapters, and learn nothing about Reed. The book is dated, copyrighted 1991, and I was there in 1991 in the former Soviet Union, but the author practices her prose more than writing a biography. If you really want a Dean Reed biography check out "Rock and Roll Radical" by Chuck Laszewski.

Sorry Ms. Nadelson, your book is a dog.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars More of a Detective Novel of Tracking Down Dean's Story, December 25, 2008

By 

Robert Edward Reid "oklahomazeppelin" (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Comrade Rockstar: The Life and Mystery of Dean Reed, the All-American Boy Who Brought Rock 'n' Roll to the Soviet Union (Paperback)

Dean Reed's life is fascinating -- racing a mule across Colorado, getting a record deal from a random hitchhiker's tip en route to California, a hit record in Uruguay, living in East Germany, making cowboy films with Czech actors -- and this book unravels a fair amount of what's known of the elusive, enigmatic star.

The problem, for some readers (including me), is it's more a story of the author -- including some tired images of frightening Cold War-era border guards and bad hotels. Many of the Dean Reed quotes listed in the book actually are directly lifted from the early '80s documentary 'The American Rebel.' Often these are told as if discovered by the author herself (Reggie's a woman), going through Soviet TV shows and press clippings and translating from Russian. A little lazy.

Another tragedy of the book -- and Dean's life is ultimately cast as quite sad -- is how the author neglects to discuss, investigate, mention very many of Dean's works, particularly his music. There's talk of a Wounded Knee film he had hoped to create at the time of his mysterious death, but otherwise she dismisses his fairly interesting '70s pop songs in one swipe. You wonder if she had heard any. Again, a bit lazy.

Glad to have read it, and some will be happy enough to follow Reggie through the old Eastern Bloc, but it's a little light. I hope to get something meatier at some point.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars COMRADE ROCKSTAR, July 29, 2007

By 

Tony Williams (Carbondale, Il United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Comrade Rockstar: The Life and Mystery of Dean Reed, the All-American Boy Who Brought Rock 'n' Roll to the Soviet Union (Paperback)

I read this book when it first appeared and wrote a damning letter to its author. It is little better than a smear job by someone who can not understand the sincere motivations which guided this talent and unfortunately led to his tragic end. Reed deserves much better!