Bookforum, Fall 2010
“[Syd Barrett] was ‘here’ and gone far too quickly, but Chapman has enshrined his achievement with intelligence and grace.”
The Observer
“Chapman has unravelled the skeins of rumour, exaggeration, and anecdote that have been wound so tightly around Barrett. . . . the best book yet about him.”
Timeout (London)
“Though Syd has been the subject of various biographies, none has approached his peculiar life, inspirations, and struggles with both drugs and mental illness with anything like the sensitivity and rigor of Rob Chapman’s heavyweight account . . . Chapman’s obvious feel for his subject and palpably zealous research make for a book that comes as close as any maybe will to capturing Barrett’s wayward lightning in a bottle.”
Daily Telegraph
“The most serious and intelligent of the four Barrett biographies . . . The first since his death in 2006, it is also the first that has the cooperation of his family. And Chapman is a fan, so it is done with genuine passion. Written in simple, unpretentious prose, it is particularly good at contextualization: explaining the social and political roots of the London psychedelic scene; detailing Barrett's musical and literary influences.”
Times Literary Supplement
“Chapman’s portrait is the most sympathetic and reliable yet published. It is well written and impressively researched.”
Mojo
“The best written, the most accurate, and by far the most incisive account of the man’s life and work. . . . Chapman has well-attuned ears, a vast critical palette on which to draw, and an understanding of the English literary canon that repeatedly gives new meanings and insights to our understanding of the forces which shaped the so-called ‘Madcap.’”
The Wire
“Rob Chapman bravely hacks his way through the undergrowth of innuendo and speculation to give us the clearest insight yet into the rise and fall of one of rock’s greatest enigmas. His critical analysis is inspired. His panorama of what he calls Barrett’s found world, an unprecedented meeting of a whimsical English tradition and modernist techniques, is impressively researched.”
Hartford Advocate, 10/15/10
“Chapman separates the wheat of the myth from the chaff of inconvenient facts. He does a superb job of tracking down nearly every conceivable person who knew Barrett… Kudos.”
Flagpole
“separate[ing] the fact from the myth and the legends”
ShortandSweetNYC.com
“a great read; it’s the not-so-simple, but honest story of a shining talent who dimmed a little too early for his fans’ tastes, but probably not his own."
Buffalo News, 11/28/10
“Excellent.”
Boston Globe, 11/26/10
“[C]limb aboard for a train back to the time of paisley shirts, velvet trousers, acid parties, and the brilliant whimsy of Syd Barrett…[in this] striking, richly detailed new biography.”
KEXP Radio blog, 12/15/10
“Of special note are the wonderful literary connections Chapman makes, showing that Barrett was in a long line of romantic bards who had several secret lives mirrored in every line they scribed….This takes the material beyond the tsk-tsk of patronizing an ‘acid casualty’ and gives honor and nobility back to a classically English author.”
Metroland, 12/13/10
“Grippingly thorough.”
Austin Chronicle, 12/10/10
“[Chapman] sets the record straight.”
Boston Herald, 12/18/10
