Boys in the Trees (Simon)

Boys in the Trees:  A Memoir
Carly Simon, 2015
Flatiron Books
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250095893


Summary
Simon's memoir reveals her remarkable life, beginning with her storied childhood as the third daughter of Richard L. Simon, the co-founder of publishing giant Simon & Schuster, her musical debut as half of The Simon Sisters performing folk songs with her sister Lucy in Greenwich Village, to a meteoric solo career that would result in 13 top 40 hits, including the #1 song "You're So Vain."

She was the first artist in history to win a Grammy Award, an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, for her song "Let the River Run" from the movie Working Girl.

The memoir recalls a childhood enriched by music and culture, but also one shrouded in secrets that would eventually tear her family apart.

Simon brilliantly captures moments of creative inspiration, the sparks of songs, and the stories behind writing "Anticipation" and "We Have No Secrets" among many others. Romantic entanglements with some of the most famous men of the day fueled her confessional lyrics, as well as the unraveling of her storybook marriage to James Taylor. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 25, 1945
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Sarah Lawrence College
• Awards—(in music...see below)
• Currently—lives on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts


Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician and children's author. She first rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records; her 13 Top 40 U.S. hits include "Anticipation" (No. 13), "You Belong To Me" (No. 6), "Coming Around Again" (No. 18), and her four Gold certified singles "Jesse" (No. 11), "Mockingbird" (No. 5), a duet with James Taylor, "You're So Vain" (No. 1), and "Nobody Does It Better" (No. 2) from the 1977 James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me.

After a brief stint with her sister Lucy Simon as duo group the Simon Sisters, she found great success as a solo artist with her 1971 self-titled debut album Carly Simon, which won her the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, and spawned her first Top 10 single "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be."

She achieved international fame with her third album No Secrets which sat firmly at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 5 weeks, and spawned the worldwide hit "You're So Vain", for which she received three Grammy nominations, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Over the course of her career, Simon has amassed 24 Billboard Hot 100 charting singles, 28 Billboard Adult Contemporary charting singles, and has won two Grammy Awards. AllMusic called Simon, "One of the quintessential singer/songwriters of the '70s". Simon has a contralto vocal range.

For her 1988 hit "Let the River Run", from the film Working Girl, Simon became the first artist in history to win a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for a song composed and written, as well as performed, entirely by a single artist. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994, inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for "You're So Vain" in 2004, and awarded the ASCAP Founders Award in 2012. In 1995 and 1998, respectively, Simon received the Boston Music Awards Lifetime Achievement and a Berklee College of Music Honorary Doctor of Music Degree.

Simon is the former wife of another notable singer-songwriter, James Taylor. Simon and Taylor have two children together, Sarah "Sally" Maria Taylor and Benjamin "Ben" Simon Taylor, who are also musicians. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/8/2016.)

Book Reviews
Boys in the Trees, Ms. Simon’s overripe memoir, means to correct the impression of extravagant good fortune....This book’s style recalls that of her songs: a little precious, a little redundant, a little too much. She recalls "my parents' dinner parties, one after another, like gold, shimmering beads strung on a necklace." She overplays the drama. ("He was my captor and I was his slave.") And in the too-much-information department, well: "James was my muse, my Orpheus, my sleeping darling...." But the barrier thrown up by this language isn’t insurmountable. And Ms. Simon has a tumultuous story to tell.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


[A] brilliant memoir.... Simon’s tone throughout is surprisingly heavy for someone who often appeared like a carefree, music biz boom-time girl. It can get overblown over matters of the heart, too: her tumultuous relationship with ex-husband James Taylor is likened in florid detail to the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. But for the most part, the book reveals her experiences clinically and compellingly, subtly showing us how canny and clever she is.
Guardian (UK)


[T]he book’s overriding theme is one of longing. Boys in the Trees recounts Simon’s singing career only in fits and starts, as if it were more a hobby than a vocation. It ends with the painful dissolution of her marriage to Taylor—who, despite his largely clean-cut public image, features in a few grim, drug-addled moments—more than 30 years ago.
Boston Globe


A lyrical look back at her childhood, her career, and oh, the men in her life...anecdote-filled...dishy without being salacious. There’s plenty here for fans to feast upon" - USA Today
"Boys in the Trees meets its lofty expectations. As one of pop music’s more literate songwriters — she was the first solo woman to win a Best Song Oscar for Let the River Run from Working Girl — Simon writes beautifully and affectingly. Her publisher father, for whom she clamored for attention and validation, would be proud.
Miami Herald


Intelligent and captivating...Don't miss it.
People Magazine


Carly Simon could have gotten away with just the name-dropping. In her life, she's crossed paths with an astonishing range of famous people, from Cat Stevens and Jimi Hendrix to Benny Goodman and Albert Einstein. So it's a pleasant surprise that in her compelling new autobiography, Boys in the Trees, she lays out her naked emotions and insecurities, and that she proves to be a supple writer with a gift for descriptions.
Rolling Stone


One of the best celebrity memoirs of the year ... elegantly written and revealing.
Hollywood Reporter


Simon's memoir unfolds in long, florid, intensely observed scenes...that are at once charged with erotic tension and attuned to subtle undercurrents of feeling. Her writing is impressionistic, slightly boy-crazy, wonderfully evocative, and suffused with the warm voice and bittersweet sensibility of her songs.
Publishers Weekly


The best parts of the book are when the author describes how her songs came into being, while the few tedious ones are moments when names are dropped right and left.... Memoirs by rock icons of the 1960s and '70s are flying fast and furious these days. This is one of the best, lively and memorable.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Boys in the Trees...and then take it from there:

1. Describe Carly Simon. For someone as bright, talented, and accomplished as she is, she has wrestled for much of her life with self-esteem. How might you explain that? Why was she unable to accept that she might have been, as one boyfriend described her, "the cleverest, wisest, most perfect girl"?

2. Talk about Simon's privileged childhood and her overbearing father. Then, of course, there's Simon's mother Andrea and her young lover. How did Simon's early life affect her?

3. In what way might Simon's wealthy background have hurt her professionally, at least early on. What does that say about the era in which she first began singing?

4. Who are the "boys in the trees"? What does the title mean?

5. The memoir indulges in a fair amount of name dropping, particularly regarding men. Did you find it annoying, or were you complete taken with her tales of the famous men in her life. Who most intrigued you?

6. Would you describe the writing as highly eroticized?

7. Talk about her marriage with James Taylor. What was the early marriage like, what drew the couple together, and what soured their relationship? Simon herself says this: From the beginning, James and I were linked together as strongly as we were not just because of love, and music, but because we were both troubled people trying our best to pass as normal."

8. So who is "You're so Vain" about? At least who does Simon say the song is—or isn't—about?

9. Discuss Simon's songwriting, how her songs came into being. What did her creative process entail: flashes of insight, serendipity, hard work, borrowings from others...? A number of reviewers have described these sections as the best of the book. Do you agree or not?

10. What about Simon's memoir surprised you, made you laugh, angered you...or struck you in any other fashion?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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