Boys in the Trees: A Memoir by Carly Simon

The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller A People Magazine Top Ten Book of the Year! Intelligent and captivating. Don't miss it. - People Magazine One of the best celebrity memoirs of the year. -The Hollywood Reporter Rock Star. Composer and Lyricist. Feminist Icon. Survivor. 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. Editorial Reviews Amazon Review An Amazon Best Book of December 2015: In the trees is just about the only place in Carly Simon's world that there aren't boys, suggests this unputdownable memoir by the beloved singer and the first artist in history to win a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for the same song (Let the River Run from the movie Working Girl). Growing up the privileged but congenitally anxious daughter of a high-flying publishing executive, Simon learned early on - perhaps from her mother, who moved a much younger male assistant into the house when the Simon sisters were small - to crave love and attention. Some of this she got, of course, from performing, even though she famously suffers from crippling stage fright. The rest she sought from men - and her encounters with guys known mostly by their bold-faced first names - Mick, Warren, Jack - are well (and sometimes painfully honestly) documented here. (And yes, she finally reveals who her song You're So Vain refers to - sort of.) But it is the story of her marriage to fellow musician and Martha's Vineyard resident James Taylor - whom she met first as a young teenager - that is the most resonant. Although the union lasted two decades, and produced two children - and despite the fact that Simon and Taylor are now not in touch - it is clear that JT is Simon's real-life torch song, the original man who got away. - Sara Nelson Review Intelligent and captivating...Don't miss it. - People Magazine One of the best celebrity memoirs of the year ... elegantly written and revealing. - The Hollywood Reporter 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 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 About the Author Carly Simon is a songwriter and singer of songs. Her children are Ben Taylor and Sally Taylor Bragonier. She has one grandchild: Bodhi Taylor Bragonier. She lives on Martha's Vineyard and is the author of Boys in the Trees. Review Intelligent and captivating...Don't miss it. - People Magazine One of the best celebrity memoirs of the year ... elegantly written and revealing. - The Hollywood Reporter 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 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 About the Author Carly Simon is a songwriter and singer of songs. Her children are Ben Taylor and Sally Taylor Bragonier. She has one grandchild: Bodhi Taylor Bragonier. She lives on Martha's Vineyard and is the author of Boys in the Trees. About the Author Carly Simon is a songwriter and singer of songs. Her children are Ben Taylor and Sally Taylor Bragonier. She has one grandchild: Bodhi Taylor Bragonier. She lives on Martha's Vineyard and is the author of Boys in the Trees. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Boys in the Trees A Memoir By Carly Simon Flatiron Books Copyright © 2015 Carly Simon All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-250-09589-3 Contents Title Page, Copyright Notice, Dedication, BOOK ONE, 1. 133 West Eleventh Street, 2. Summer in the Trees, 3. Frunzhoffa, 4. Carly, Meet Ronny, 5. Splinter-Happy Steps, 6. The Dinner Party, 7. Moonglow, 8. The Twenty-Ninth Floor, BOOK TWO, 9. The Hardships of the Mistral, 10. Frog Footman, 11. Moneypenny, 12. Jake Was the Hub, 13. Record Numero Uno, 14. Soft Summer Gardens, 15. The Potemkin Hotel, BOOK THREE, 16. Carnegie Hall, 17. Choppin' Wood, 18. Moonlight Mile, 19. We'll Marry, 20. Emulsification, 21. Heat's Up, Tea's Brewed, 22. Showdown, 23. Sheets the Color of Fire, 24. Strip, Bitch, Epilogue, Acknowledgments, About the Author, Copyright, CHAPTER 1 133 west eleventh street This day may have been the day, the very day when my identity was born. Before the incident occurred, I didn't think about who I was. After, I would spend the rest of my life testing myself to see if I had been right. The whole family was gathered after dinner to make the acquaintance of a possible nurse for Peter, my brother, just born five months before. Lucy and Joey, my two older sisters, and I were all under the age of eight. We lived in the top floor of a six-story town house on Eleventh Street. Quick, girls, it's almost eight, the plane got in an hour ago. Get dressed and wear shoes and socks and brush your hair. Mommy was holding a cigarette between her lips. She tried to get a brush through the tangles of my feathery hair, and finally grabbed a barrette, attempting to get my hair to go somewhere it stubbornly wouldn't go. She left it in a web of blond knots and went on to an easier task: brushing Lucy's hair. Andrea Simon still had to neaten up her chignon, don her black calf heels, and apply a new layer of lipstick. She always wore bright red. From at least three rooms away I could hear Daddy playing the piano: a strong, beautiful classical piece he'd been working on. It sounded just like a record. Daddy had been in the hospital for five weeks after Peter was born. He had had a nervous collapse. I would not learn about psychology until later, when the names and labels and diagnoses would collect and sprawl before me. Quick, girls. Mommy hurried us along. Don't forget your manners, she might have repeated several times so it would stick. I wish he'd play something from Carousel or South Pacific, Mommy thought aloud. It would make Mrs. Gaspard feel more comfortable, I should think. Rachmaninoff isn't for this kind of meeting, as if any of her three young daughters would know. She really did mean it, though, because she issued one final direction to us and then walked very fast into the living room to tell Daddy, I presume, to stop playing what he was playing and play something more fun. We girls followed her and could hear them having a minor argument, and then Daddy started playing The Man I Love, from Strike Up the Band, by George Gershwin. Gershwin had sent him a copy. My father was at the center of the publishing world in 1948, and he had gotten to know Gershwin while the company was doing a book on him. Daddy had started the company, Simon & Schuster, in 1924, with Max Schuster, and by 1948 things were only getting better. And he'll be big and strong, the man I love