 | |
| Author | Elton John |
|---|---|
| Audio read by | Taron Egerton |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Autobiography |
| Published | 15 October 2019 |
| Publisher | Macmillan Publishers |
| Pages | 350 |
| ISBN | 1-509-85331-6 |
Me is the autobiography of the English singer, pianist and composer Elton John. It was released on 15 October 2019 by Macmillan Publishers. It was ghostwritten by journalist Alexis Petridis, [1] who worked on the book with John for three and a half years. [2]
The book recounts events from John's childhood in Pinner through to his final tour, Farewell Yellow Brick Road. [3] He describes his depression and suicide attempts as well as drug addiction and his prostate cancer diagnosis. [4] He admits he spent his whole career "trying to show my father what I'm made of". [5] He explains the reasons behind his advocacy against AIDS. [6]
In the book, despite being good friends with him, John said that the American singer-songwriter Michael Jackson was "genuinely mentally ill" and "disturbing to be around". [7] The comments arose from a lunch John hosted to introduce his husband David Furnish to Jackson in 1993. [8] [9]
Me was released by Macmillan Publishers on 15 October 2019. Excerpts read by Taron Egerton (who portrayed John in the biographical film Rocketman ) aired on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in the first week of its release. [5]
Hadley Freeman, a writer for The Guardian , called the book "racy, pacy and crammed with scurrilous anecdotes", saying: "Elton makes fun of no one more than himself. He is utterly, astonishingly, hilariously self-lacerating." [2]
Variety dubbed the book "deeply dishy". [10]
A Time review said: "Like John’s songs, Me overflows with whimsical characters, twisted humor, winking self-aggrandizement and stark pathos. True to his spirit, it's a little silly and over the top, but it's also an absorbing and unfettered joy." [3]
In The Daily Telegraph , Neil McCormick said: "If you are in the market for an autobiography crammed with sex, drugs and rock and roll, Elton is clearly your man." [11]
In The Times , Will Hodgkinson said that John's "sad, funny memoir reveals the insecurities that drive his needy behaviour." [12]
An autobiography is a self-written account of one's life. The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English periodical The Monthly Review, when he suggested the word as a hybrid, but condemned it as "pedantic". However, its next recorded use was in its present sense, by Robert Southey in 1809. Despite only being named early in the nineteenth century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. Roy Pascal differentiates autobiography from the periodic self-reflective mode of journal or diary writing by noting that "[autobiography] is a review of a life from a particular moment in time, while the diary, however reflective it may be, moves through a series of moments in time". Autobiography thus takes stock of the autobiographer's life from the moment of composition. While biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints, autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. The memoir form is closely associated with autobiography but it tends, as Pascal claims, to focus less on the self and more on others during the autobiographer's review of their own life.
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