NASHVILLE |DATE: JANUARY 28, 2008
FM: MITCH SCHNEIDER/ALEXANDRA GREENBERG
DIANA MENDOZA
DELIVERS A STIRRING ACCOUNT OF SURVIVAL AGAINST MANY ODDS IN HER BOOK ‘DANDELION’
You may not have heard of CATHERINE JAMES, although there are songs that have been written about her, including “Under The Falling Sky” by Jackson Browne—from his 1972 debut album—in which he asked her, during their romance, to “abandon your sad history.”
In her buzzed-about book DANDELION: Memoir of A Free Spirit (St. Martin’s Press)—published this past fall and due in soft cover this summer—Catherine James illuminates her history and offers a stirring account of survival against so many odds. As a review in Kirkus noted, DANDELION is “the rare celebrity-crammed memoir that would be worth reading even without the bold-faced names.”
The Los Angeles native was wickedly abused physically and emotionally as a child by her mother and abandoned by her father; as a teenager, she chose incarceration over continuing to live at home before running away at 14 to Greenwich Village. She then moved to London and had a child at 17 with Denny Laine of the Moody Blues before splitting up with him and becoming a single mother.
Her life placed her directly in the vortex of the nascent music scenes in Los Angeles (meeting Bob Dylan when she was 13), New York (staying at Andy Warhol’s Factory) and London (living with Mick Jagger and also Eric Clapton during the recording of Layla)—and she vividly takes us behind the scenes. Catherine would go on to become a Wilhelmina model and later a stand-in for Diane Keaton in several movies. Along the way, her life took another spin when, as she writes: “The first time I saw my father as a woman was at the grand old restaurant Musso & Frank on Hollywood Boulevard.”
A Q&A with Catherine James (www.officialcatherinejames.com)
What made you decide to put your story into writing?
“It was the meeting with my dad. Seeing him as a transsexual. It was such an extraordinary experience that I wanted to write it down. From there the book took on a life of its own.”
How cathartic of an experience was writing the book?
“Oddly enough it wasn’t actually cathartic. There were a few instances, especially in the early chapters where I was shocked at the brutality of my parents. I realized that I had no idea of who they were, or what motivated them to be so completely evil.”
Can you talk a little about the reaction you’ve received from the book?
“I have received several amazing letters from people who have wanted to relate their own extraordinary experiences. Many wrote that my book deeply inspired them.”
What parts of the book really stick out in your mind as having a profound lasting impact on your life?
“Every chapter seemed to kick my backside into an amazing set of new and bizarre circumstance. I suppose the perils of being a teenage mother and trying to raise my child alone in the country had an impact.”
It’s interesting to read how Dylan was your guardian angel and then you ran away to Greenwich Village before moving to London. You were in the right place at the right time for three different scenes: LA, NYC and London. Can you talk a little bit in general about why that time in history really is so special?
“I think it was special because of the newness and innocence of the time. There were so many young creative people coming together. The Beatles were like the voice of God, saying, ‘All You Need Is Love.’ It was a time for bucking the conservative rules and realizing there was no consequence. Psychedelics certainly gave a higher sense of awareness and freedom. I think my generation was the first to realize that life was not so much a sentence, but more of a banquet to explore and revel in.”
Your book covers so much ground: parental abuse, parental abandonment, being incarcerated as a juvenile, running away, having a baby at 17, domestic abuse, coming to terms with your dad’s sex change and more. Where do you believe you get your strength?
“Being abandoned and terrorized as a child gave me the strength of an army. The good part is that nothing could compare to that awfulness. Being free from that, my life always felt like a breeze. Having nothing to lose was very empowering.”
What do you hope readers take away from your story? Is it a message of hope or strength?
“Don’t let anything stop you from happiness. You can get through your life however you choose.”
http://
‘FREE SPIRIT’ CATHERINE JAMES DELIVERS A STIRRING ACCOUNT OF SURVIVAL AGAINST MANY ODDS IN HER BOOK ‘DANDELION’
