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Simon & Schuster
November 2014
On Sale: November 4, 2014
46 pages
ISBN: 1501103857
EAN: 9781501103858
Kindle: B00N377UWI
Hardcover / e-Book
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Fiction
When Bruce Springsteen was a little boy, he learned the story of Brave Cowboy Bill, about a pure-hearted little cowboy. It was the first of Bruceβs Western loves, which now range from John Ford movies to Mexican music to Native American art. Each of these inspirations, plus what heβs learned as a man and a rock βnβ roller about how to combine whimsy and wisdom, were stations on the way to Outlaw Pete, a modern legend of a criminal who starts out in diapers and confronts the roughest edges of adulthood. Itβs one of the most ambitious and original story songs Springsteen has writtenβrhapsodic and harsh, a meditation on destiny, filled with absurdities but not for one second of its eight minutes exactly a joke. Itβs an elaborate musical drama, weaving into a single tapestry several styles of rock and an orchestration reminiscent of a Morricone soundtrack. Outlaw Pete is an adult book, illustrated by Frank Caruso, who drew and painted its pages. Caruso does more than illustrate the song. His approach, immaculately detailed, simple when it needs to be, parallels Springsteenβs blend of absurdity and meditation. The questions about destiny remain unanswered, as they must be, but theyβre also brought into a different kind of focus. Details that pass by almost unnoticed in the lyrics become central. Reading and listening have rarely so superbly complemented each other. The result becomes the most intense kind of artistic collaboration, a vision shared. But Iβm not trying to start anything, so buy it, donβt steal it, OK? βDave Marsh
 Media BuzzDaily Show with Jon Stewart - November 10, 2014
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