One Train Later: A Memoir

Summers—a musician best known for playing guitar in the seminal 1980s band the Police—recounts the details of his time in the spotlight and his circuitous and fantastic journey toward fame in a memoir that is just as generous (and sometimes meticulous) in providing details as it is in exploring the human toll of living out the "collective fantasy" of being a "rock god." There are many great rock moments that dazzle—hanging with Clapton, jamming with Hendrix, hallucinating with John Belushi—but the less extraordinary memories make for a more compelling narrative: he recalls his childhood in England, where, after an "immediate bond" with the guitar, "the spiritual side of life slowly fills with music." Narrated in the present tense and with occasionally vivid language (Summers recounts "the familiar backstage" as "the taste of Jack stuck on a Wheat Thin"), every rock cliché is described (drugs, sex, ego), but, refreshingly, little is romanticized. This is a stage-side account of the birth, rise and dissipation of the Police—and fans of the band will not be disappointed—but it is also an honest travelogue of a British kid who, subsisting "on a diet of music and hope," traversed the most coveted landscapes of pop culture and lived to write about it. (Oct.)