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A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the Sixties
 
 
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A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the Sixties [Hardcover]

Robert Greenfield (Author)
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)

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Book Description

May 5, 2009
A Day in the Life is the story of how the ideal marriage between two young and extraordinarily beautiful members of the English upper class fell apart as the psychedelic dreams of the sixties gave way to the harsh, hard-rock reality of the seventies. A tender, moving, and often harrowing look at the moment in time when the counterculture collided with the international jet set, A Day in the Life captures the spirit of that era and the people who lived through it with unerring accuracy and heartfelt precision.

When Tommy Weber and Susan “Puss” Coriat, London’s most beautiful couple, were married in 1964, it was the fitting end to a storybook romance. But the fast cars Tommy loved to race, their celebrity friends, and the huge trust fund Puss had inherited masked a tortured truth—both had suffered through oppressive and neglectful childhoods and were now caught up in a wildly extravagant lifestyle that neither Puss’ inheritance nor Tommy’s increasingly desperate schemes could support. Six years later, Puss found herself wandering around India with her two sons while Tommy, who was now smuggling drugs to survive, lived in London with a stunning young actress. A Day in the Life is also the stirring account of how the couple’s tow sons—one of whom is the well-known actor Jake Weber—somehow managed to survive a childhood that would have destroyed those of lesser spirit.

An unbelievable true-life tale that often reads like a novel, A Day in the Life follow the fortunes and misfortunes of one remarkable family while also introducing us to an extensive cast of supporting characters that includes Keith Richards, Anita Pallenberg, Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, John Lennon, and Charlotte Rampling, as well as many of the movers and shakers who helped create the “Swinging London” scene.


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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this roving relationship biography, journalist Greenfield (Exile on Main St.) documents the end of swinging London and the psychedelic 1960s through the breakdown of a high-society, scene-hopping married couple. Tommy Weber and Susan "Puss" Coriat were pure products of their times: Tommy was a racecar driver-turned-drug supplier (for no less than the Rolling Stones); Puss's experimentation with LSD and quest for a spiritual guru would lead to schizophrenia, involuntary hospitalization and electro-shock therapy. The couple's two young sons, caught between their coke-addled father (Tommy once taped a pound of cocaine to each of them to get through customs) and their mother's steady mental decline, prove remarkably resilient. Following the couple's divorce, Tommy and his sons lived with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards (and his hangers-on) in the south of France, where Tommy got heavily into heroin; Puss's thwarted plan to meet them there in 1971 would presage her suicide by sleeping pills. Capturing the tenor and tone of the era, Greenfield's dysfunctional family is just as mesmerizing as his previous big-name subjects like Jerry Garcia and Timothy Leary.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Kirkus Reviews, 4/15/09
“A eulogy for the 1960s…Though it often reads like an extended society gossip column, the narrative is studded with enough trivia and name-dropping to engage ex-hippies and other fans of ’60s culture.”

San Francisco Bay Guardian, 5/6/09
“This book [is] a great gift from the cosmos.”

New York Post, 5/10/09
“A look at the ’60s through the lens of two of Swinging England’s beautiful people.”

Seattle Times, 5/17/09
“Greenfield's reporting skill is admirable, and when he quotes Puss' last letter to her sons, it is bone-chilling. As the author of two previous books on the Rolling Stones, Greenfield brings the decade to life as well as any writer, without ignoring the darkness that soon envelops this family.”

Tuscon Citizen, 5/7/09
“This highly readable cautionary tale centers on two privileged people who lost their bearings in a hazy world of drugs, free love and unfulfilled dreams.”

Monterey Herald, 5/21/09
“His books, articles, profiles, stories and scripts have made his voice one of the prominent spokespersons for the 1960s. In his work, he delves beneath the surface of the lives of some of the most important figures of this music generation, showing readers the humanity that lives beneath fame and glory.”

January.com, 5/15/09
“Reads, at times, like a novel…This book is just stuffed full of…juicy tidbits.”

Washington Times, 5/31/09
“[An] extraordinary story, part magical mystery tour and part morality tale…Greenfield has done a marvelous job of re-creating the wild ride of Tommy and Puss with a splendid immediacy…As rendered here anyway, they are in themselves fascinating characters, oddly compelling and attractive despite their glaring flaws…Greenfield is a superb guide through the turbulent world where this odd couple led their frenzied lives…One of the most powerful cautionary tales about the heady Sixties that I have ever read.”

Los Angeles Times, 5/31/09
“[A] fascinating book about beautiful people gone down.”

Blogcritics.org, 5/2//09
“[A] well-researched biography...To some extent, [Puss and Tommy’s] story could be a metaphor for their era, a tale of promise that, with liberal doses of ‘sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll,’ devolved into self-absorption and self-ruin.”

Boston Globe, 6/4/09
“Well researched, and the interviews with Jake and Charley Weber, the couple’s tempest-tossed sons, are engrossing…Greenfield is a vivid writer with an unmatched grip on the tawdry. Many anecdotes are entertaining.”

InfoDad.com
“[An] accurate portrayal of some of the less-than-‘groovy’ aspects of the Swinging Sixties.”

Publishersweekly.com, 6/15/09
“Greenfield documents the end of swinging London and the psychedelic 1960s through the breakdown of a high-society, scene-hopping married couple…Capturing the tenor and tone of the era, Greenfield’s dysfunctional family is just as mesmerizing as his previous big-name subjects like Jerry Garcia and Timothy Leary."

Curledup.com
“Greenfield understands this period and writes about it with candor and authority.”

Curledup.com
“A great read, redolent of the times it so luridly depicts.”

New York Waste, June 2009
“[An] amazing book…told brilliantly…A true story of two extremely fascinating people…The most exciting biography to come out in a very long time!”

The Yummy List, 6/27/09
“The sort of real life that defies fiction, this is a blistering beach read for anyone who's more taken by the late 60s social upheaval than the Gossip Girl/East Hampton entitlement and indulged behaviour.”

WTVF Talk of the Town, 7/7/09
“The fascinating story of what happens when there is too much drugs, sex, and rock and roll.”

Glide magazine’s Hidden Track, 7/21/09
“[Greenfield is] one of the true legends of the music writing landscape and particularly the music biography.”

Music Connection, August 2009
“[A] heartbreaking true tale of the unraveling of a seemingly idyllic English upper-class marriage, told against the backdrop of the end of the ’60s and its rock star elite.”

Elmore, Sept/Oct 2009
“An impeccably researched transport vessel into the day-in, day-out friendships, haphazard propositions, manic depression, casual sex, irresponsible parenting, Hendrix-hanging, Stones-insider, drug-trafficking heyday of these guiltily interesting yo-yos…I can spot a Greenfield book, and his fans will find this one worth the read.”

Howard County Times(MD), 8/6/09
“Dazzling and sobering in equal measures…Undeniably fascinating.”

Augusta Metro Spirit
“A virtual scrapbook of sixties culture…Greenfield holds a deft hand for narration…Greenfield uncovers the passion, power, and intrigue of a cultural transition that still leaves its effects upon the current landscape.”

Midwest Book Review
“The 60s and sentiments come to life in a solid true-life story of social change at its fastest pace.”

The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture, Volume III, Issue I
“Greenfield makes a compelling case for revisiting Weber and Coriat as the collateral damage of a society-wide experiment with drugs, liberation and free expression.”


Product Details

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1 edition (May 5, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0306816229
  • ISBN-13: 978-0306816222
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

 

Customer Reviews

13 Reviews
5 star:
 (6)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars The darker side of the Swinging Sixties, September 19, 2009
By 
sb-lynn (Santa Barbara, California United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the Sixties (Hardcover)
No spoilers.

I got this book because I had read an interview with actor Jake Weber, where he talked about his turbulent upbringing during the 1960s. He was one of two sons of a young socialite named "Puss" Susan Coriat, and her husband, Tommy Weber.

I started reading the book, and I ended up finishing it in one sitting. Robert Greenfield really manages to tell a compelling and interesting story, yet still maintain a journalistic distance.

Both Puss Coriat, and Tommy Weber came from privileged, wealthy families. Yet both sets of parents divorced, and Puss and Tommy were shuttled around to various schools and relatives. Puss Coriat's mother Pricilla was well-known - she was known as the "little rich girl" and was one of the wealthiest women of her time, yet she was foolish and a spendthrift. Tommy's parents were likewise pretty dysfunctional.

Puss and Tommy meet and fall in love and marry right at the start of the craziness that marked the mid-to late 1960s. They were right in the center of it all, and they hung around with all the celebrity rockers of their time, in particular the Rolling Stones and Keith Richards. Throw in to this mix a lot of various drugs, (LSD, marijuana, heroin, among others) and you can kind of see where this is going.

I don't want to give anything away, but there is not a good ending for either parent, in particular, Puss. She develops a sort of drug induced schizophrenia, and had an apparent psychotic break along with depression. (Her reaction reminded me a lot of Sid Barret's from Pink Floyd, and in fact he is even mentioned in this regard.) Tommy's life continues with the focus on drugs, sex and rock 'n roll, which doesn't serve him well as he ages.

In short, this is a fascinating little book that really gives you a sense of what that decade and lifestyle were all about. It's one thing to choose that way of life if you are on your own, but it's a different case if like Puss and Tommy, you have two small boys. My heart went out to those boys, and it's a tribute to them both that they seem to have turned out so well.

Recommended, especially if you like reading about the wild times that were the 1960s, and what it was like to have been a part of the madness. My only criticism is that there are some substantial gaps in the narrative, but that's not the fault of the author as much as there were few (competent) witnesses around to say what happened. I'm not sure if I ever felt like I "knew" Puss, or for that matter even Tommy, but the book amply demonstrates how people with such promising futures could mess up their lives due to partying, drugs and alcohol, in a decade that seemed to revel in it all.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Modern Fairy Tale, May 23, 2009
By 
Jerry Pompili (San Anselmo, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the Sixties (Hardcover)
What an amazing story! A Fairy Tale but one that doesn't end with "they lived happily ever after". Greenfield reveals a part of the swinging 60's that ads to the saying "sex drugs and rock'n roll", heartbreak and despair. I was totally engrossed in this story and could not put it down. WHen is the movie coming out?
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A solid true-life story of social change at its fastest pace, September 14, 2009
This review is from: A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the Sixties (Hardcover)
A DAY IN THE LIFE: ONE FAMILY, THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE, AND THE END OF THE SIXTIES tells how an ideal marriage between two members of the English upper class fell part as the psychedelic dreams of the 50s became the hard-rock of the 80s. Using Tommy Weber and Susan Coriat as an example, the 60s and sentiments come to life in a solid true-life story of social change at its fastest pace.
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