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Evening's Empire: A Novel
 
 
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Evening's Empire: A Novel [Hardcover]

Bill Flanagan (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)


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Book Description

January 5, 2010
THE YEAR IS 1967.In England, and around the world, rock music is exploding—the Beatles have gone psychedelic, the Stones are singing "Ruby Tuesday," and the summer of love is approaching. For Jack Flynn, a newly minted young solicitor at a conservative firm, the rock world is of little interest—until he is asked to handle the legal affairs of Emerson Cutler, the seductive front man for an up-and-coming group of British boys with a sound that could take them all the way.Thus begins Jack Flynn’s career with the Ravons, a forty-year journey through London in the sixties, Los Angeles in the seventies, New York in the eighties, into Eastern Europe, Africa, and across America, as Flynn tries to manage his clients through the highs of stardom, the has-been doldrums, sellouts, reunions, drug busts, bad marriages, good affairs, and all the temptations, triumphs, and vanities that complicate the businesses of music and friendship.

Spanning the decades and their shifting ideologies, from the wild abandon of the sixties to the cold realities of the twenty-first century, Evening’s Empire is filled with surprising, sharply funny, and perceptive riffs on fame, culture, and world events. A firsthand observer and remarkable storyteller, author Bill Flanagan has created an epic of rock-and-roll history that is also the life story of a generation.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As in his previous novel, A&R, MTV executive Flanagan presents a life in the music biz, this time in the form of a perhaps too-sprawling history of rock and roll and the men behind the scenes. In 1967, young attorney Jack Flynn ingratiates himself to budding British rock act the Ravons by easing singer Emerson Cutler out of a messy divorce, getting the band out of a disastrous contract and taking the rap for the musicians' attempted drug smuggling, the last of which gets Flynn disbarred. For the next four decades, his fate is intertwined with the band, even as it dissolves at the first whiff of success: Emerson goes solo and becomes a minor sensation in America, while keyboardist Simon's dreary tunes send him touring the Communist bloc. Tragic bass player Charlie fades quickly into obscurity, but nearly strikes it rich through other avenues. Flynn's role as manager is a wonderful balancing act, both for the protagonist and the author, and Flanagan, despite his tendency to leave absolutely nothing out (and, curiously, a missed opportunity with a devilish producer), pulls it all together into a complex, humorous and touching story. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Spanning some 40 years, journalist Flanagan’s third novel is the picaresque, anecdotal story of an English rock band. In London in 1967, his boss tells young lawyer Jack Flynn to photograph the wife of client Emerson Cutler. Seems she is cheating on the serial adulterer rock star. Cutler asks Flynn to work for him, thereby introducing him to the rock lifestyle. Over the years, Flynn, Cutler, and the rest of the band leave London for L.A., tour the world, and generally behave as in prototypical rock-band fashion. Rock insider Flanagan is very familiar with the milieu, knowing how musicians act and talk as well as the kinds of rock-scene denizens he describes—journalists, producers, record executives, and so on—and referencing historical figures and events throughout. Despite the rowdy rock atmosphere, this novel disguised as an old man’s road memoirs has a pensive quality. As Flynn notes, “Thousands of days are lost to us completely. They pass out of our memories like songs half heard on restaurant radios.” It was only rock and roll, but he liked it. --June Sawyers

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 656 pages
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 5, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1439148457
  • ISBN-13: 978-1439148457
  • Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.1 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,008,954 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bill Flanagan is the author of two previous novels, A&R and NEW BEDLAM, as well as two non-fiction books, WRITTEN IN MY SOUL and U2 AT THE END OF THE WORLD, and a humor collection, LAST OF THE MOE HAIRCUTS. He has written for Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone, Spy, Vanity Fair and many other magazines and newspapers.

Flanagan is also executive vice president and editorial director of MTV Networks for which he created and oversees the series VH1 STORYTELLERS and CMT CROSSROADS. Flanagan has produced, executive produced or co-produced countless hours of television, including specials for NBC and ABC, two concerts from the Clinton White House, and The Concert for New York City after the September 11 attacks. He is ombudsman of the Sundance Channel series SPECTACLE: ELVIS COSTELLO WITH....

Flanagan is an on-air essayist on CBS NEWS SUNDAY MORNING. He has been interviewed on TV by Oprah Winfrey, Diane Sawyer, Conan O'Brien, Jeff Greenfield, Bryant Gumble and Charlie Rose. He has twice guest-hosted for Charlie Rose and hosted PBS's special BOB DYLAN AT NEWPORT. He has also appeared in documentaries by Peter Bogdanovich, Julien Temple, and the BBC, been a guest on Terri Gross's FRESH AIR on NPR, and a talking head on PBS's American Masters.

Flanagan grew up in Rhode Island and graduated from Brown University. He is married to Susan Gallagher. They have three children and live in New York City.

 

Customer Reviews

16 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
4 star:
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3 star:
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2 star:
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1 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Modern Odyssey, February 3, 2010
By 
PLU-EZE! (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Evening's Empire: A Novel (Hardcover)
This is an intelligent and "important" novel that chronicles the life and times of rock music from the 1960s to the present through the amazing experiences of a band manager and, especially, through the superb mind and writing ability of Bill Flanagan. (Congrats to you, Mr. Flanagan!)

If you want a sweeping epic, filled with drugs, sex, rock and roll -- and incredible story-telling -- laced with what certainly sounds like professional insight, then this will be a page-turning delight. The characters seem genuine, their motivations, actions, and reactions believable, the plot moves along rapidly, and you just want it all to continue.

Once in a while I read what I feel is truly a great book -- this one makes my short list. I think you'll feel lucky to have read it.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A very personally relevant book, February 19, 2010
By 
Michael J. Sales (NEWBURYPORT, MA, US) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Evening's Empire: A Novel (Hardcover)
I get to read (and write) a lot.

This is the best book for me in several years. I would rank it in the same category as Flicker by Theodore Roszak and Gospel by Wilton Barnhardt. A completely compelling read for people who grew up with Rock 'n' Roll. I grieved mightily at the end of this book. I've read all of Michael Connolly's books, and Flanagan's work here is definitely more of a page turner than anyone of those, save, perhaps, The Poet.

Evening's Empire is the only product outside of specific songs and people that I have ever known Bob Dylan to recommend. If you are at all a member of the 60s, you owe it to yourself to spend at least an hour with this novel.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, October 21, 2010
By 
This review is from: Evening's Empire: A Novel (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Evening's Empire is such a wonderfully told, detailed story, you walk away from it's 600+ pages thinking you just followed the history of a real band's rise to fame and fall from glory. Flanagan is a fantastic writer who marries his love of music and excellent writing talent with an inside knowledge of the music business. The result? Fantastic.
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