Light Come Shining: The Transformations of Bob Dylan

by Andrew McCarron

Overview

Bob Dylan is the prince of self-reinvention and deflection. Whether it's the folkies of Greenwich Village, the student movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Born Again Christians, the Chabad Lubavitch community, or English Department postmodernists, specific intellectual and sociopolitical groups have repeatedly claimed Bob Dylan as their spokesperson. But in the words of filmmaker Todd Haynes, who cast six actors to depict different facets of Dylan's life and artistic personae in his 2009 film I'm Not There, "The minute you try to grab hold of Dylan, he's no longer where he was."

In Light Come Shining, writer Andrew McCarron uses psychological tools to examine three major turning points - or transformations - in Bob Dylan's life: the aftermath of his 1966 motorcycle "accident," his Born Again conversion in 1978, and his recommitment to songwriting and performing in 1987. With fascinating insight, McCarron reveals how a common script undergirds Dylan's self-explanations of these changes; and, at the heart of this script, illuminates a fascinating story of spiritual death and rebirth that has captivated us all for generations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199313471
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/13/2017
Series:	Inner Lives
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Andrew McCarron is a teacher and writer born and raised in the Hudson River Valley. He holds a Ph.D. in Social/Personality Psychology and currently runs the Religion, Philosophy & Ethics Department at Trinity School in New York City. His first collection of poetry, Mysterium, was published by Edgewise Press in 2011, and book length study of the poets Charles North, Tony Towle, and Paul Violi, Three New York Poets, was published by Station Hill Press in 2015.

Table of Contents

Prologue
Chapter 1. Masked and Anonymous
Chapter 2. The Motorcycle Crackup
Chapter 3. Saved
Chapter 4. The Recommitment
Chapter 5. World Gone Wrong
Chapter 6. The American Proteus
Notes on Sources

Editorial Reviews

"McCarron successfully makes a mysterious figure a touch less mysterious."—Kirkus

"This is a crash course on Dylan's oeuvre and a rich examination of his influences, using his own lyrics and words culled from various interviews to uncover the essence of the man himself. A fascinating exploration of the endlessly intriguing new Nobel laureate."—Booklist

"Meticulously researched and well-argued."—Maclean's

"A very engaging and insightful biography of an iconoclast."—Anniston Star

"Fascinating and inventive."—Houston Press

"McCarron's book shines a light on aspects of [Bob Dylan's] ever-puzzling evolution."—Moment Magazine

"Andrew McCarron hasn't written yet another chronicle of banalities in a rock star's life but instead has done something deeper, more interesting."—Shepherd Express

"A legendary cultural icon, Bob Dylan has been the subject of countless books and articles ranging from trivial to scholarly. Is yet another book about him really needed? In this case, the answer is yes."—CHOICE Reviews

From the Publisher

2016-10-31
An academic and poet gamely attempts to unravel Bob Dylan's cryptic psyche.This slim, occasionally dense study could easily be retitled "Bob's Three Crises," framed as it is by a trio of what McCarron (Religion, Philosophy, and Ethics/Trinity School, New York City; Mysterium: Poems, 2015, etc.) deems major turning points in the songwriter's life and career: his 1966 motorcycle accident, his mid-1970s conversion to Christianity, and his newfound creative spark in the late 1980s. All three, argues the author, are manifestations of a consistent "script" in which Dylan confronts his fear of death, becomes transfigured, and channels that transfiguration in new ways into his music. In coming to these conclusions, McCarron had no assistance from Dylan himself or those close to him; this work of "psychobiography" is based solely on a close study of Dylan's interviews, writing, and performances. Though the author's discussion of psychobiology is often leaden, overall the book is an insightful and often persuasive work, particularly in how spiritual themes (especially apocalyptic ones) persist in Dylan's music. (Counter to the assumption that Dylan cast off his Christianity sometime in the early 1980s, McCarron finds plenty of evidence that the faith still matters to him.) Beyond Dylan's music career, McCarron also explores the influence of his Jewish background, his growing up during the Cold War, and his upbringing in rural Minnesota as playing essential roles in his story. Themes of escape and despair keep pushing him to write his own story, oftentimes making up pieces of his biography. Though McCarron isn't prone to rhapsodizing about Dylan's music, his critical remove has an upside: rather than focusing on the touchstones that fans would highlight, he explores less-appreciated works that Dylan himself was passionate about—e.g., the film flop Renaldo and Clara or his much-performed song "In the Garden." In the process, he suggests an alternate history that feels closer to reality than mythology. McCarron successfully makes a mysterious figure a touch less mysterious.

Kirkus Reviews