Barney Hoskyns
Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits
(Broadway)

If you've followed the brilliantly scary Tom Waits and his work on record, stage and film over the past 40 years, you're bound to have plenty of unanswered questions about his strange visions and the life of the man who conceived of them. This lengthy (500 page), but earnest, attempt to capture and explain a most interesting artist and human being is a pretty good read, owing to Barney Hoskyn's superior writing ability, though he may provide considerably more detail on the recording of specific tracks than most readers require.

For the unschooled, it charts Waits' journey from Chula Vista, California to L.A., on to New York City, around the world and back to his present home in northern California, and the always-surprising career moves he made along the way. Although he failed to secure Waits' cooperation on the book, Hoskyns interviewed him previously so he had some personal experience with his ways and personality to draw upon. But this combination of first-hand knowledge and unanswered questions can lead to leaps of logic that may or may not be reflective of reality, also demonstrated in Across the Great Divide, Hoskyn's unauthorized portrait of the Band. Hoskyn's preference for Waits' early, pre-Kathleen Brennan work seems to make him suspect that finding true love may have been good for the man, but not for the artist. The prominence of Hoskyns' personal opinions are somewhat distracting and irritating (especially if you disagree), but there are some great stories here if you stick with it.—Kay Cordtz