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The Fan Who Knew Too Much: Aretha Franklin, The Rise of the Soap Opera, Children of the Gospel Church, and Other Meditations
“A must-read . . . The Fan Who Knew Too Much is a book of revelations, and an essential document of our times.”
—Alexander Varty, Straight.com  Full Review [PDF]
“The timing of Mr. Heilbut’s book, and the intensity of his argument, have thrust it from the dusty corners of arts criticism into the heat and light of the political arena.”
—Samuel G. Freedman, The New York Times Article [PDF]
“Comes out firing . . . at some major targets, both secular and theological.
The main theme: much of what people think they know about cultural phenomena
is inaccurate, incomplete, and in many cases misguided and twisted
. . . You’ll seldom read a more exacting discussion. Anthony Heilbut’s impressive knowledge — and his stunning ability to relay it in an appealing manner — makes The Fan
Who Knew Too Much a delight.”
—Ron Wynn, ArtsNash.com Full Review [PDF]
“Heilbut’s construction — that to know black America, one must know the nature
of the relationship between black gays and the black church — seems like
hyperbole at first glance. But his point becomes clearer and more forceful
by the word . . . moving into an area that has up-to-the-minute implications.”
—Mark Reynolds, PopMatters Full Review [PDF]
“Heilbut knows his stuff . . . in a fascinating chapter . . . [he] argues persuasively
that even before Aretha walked into a studio to record with Wexler, she had already begun to change the game for women, African-Americans and music culture.”
—Greg Kot, The Chicago Tribune Full Review [PDF]
“Heilbut goes where most are wary to tread . . . He writes with full permission from those whose tragic tales he tells. No one, whether white, black, church, organization, writer, or political figure, who has disrespected the ‘sissies and bulldaggers’ is spared Heilbut’s ire. It is a masterful piece of writing, ranking among the author’s best work. I admire and applaud his courage to tackle a subject that most of us have been far too craven to cover.
Reading The Fan Who Knew Too Much is a revelatory and stirring experience. It is an elegy for, and ode to, the émigrés and exiles — ‘those who are heavy laden,’ to quote a gospel lyric — who despite their suffering contributed significantly to the richness of American culture. De grandes souffrances vient du grand art.”
—Bob Marovich, The Black Gospel Blog Full Review [PDF]
more . . .
“A glorious retelling of Aretha Franklin’s story and its enormous arc.”
— W. Kim Heron, Detroit Metro TimesFull Review [PDF]
“A sprawling, juicy tome that’s as gossipy and anecdotal as it is academic . . . Uncanny . . . Unprecedented.”
—Joey DiGuglielmo, The Washington Blade Full Review [PDF]
“Revelatory . . . A breathtaking trip through American culture.”
— Tom Lavoie, Shelf AwarenessFull Review [PDF]
“Full of contagious enthusiasm, razor sharp wit, and stunning insights, Heilbut’s affectionate fan’s notes range brilliantly over topics as diverse as gospel singers Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, and Marion Williams, novelists Thomas Mann
and Joseph Roth, and soap operas, homosexuality, and opera. A Grammy-Award winning record producer and cultural historian, Heilbut (The Gospel Sound) readily acknowledges his consummate fandom, and admits that ‘an old fan knows a few things — that his fandom has been a major portion of his self, a source of as much pleasure as his love or his work.’
In these meditations he considers his great loves — especially gospel music, a thread that weaves its way through this colorful quilt of cultural reflections — dignifying both himself and his subjects through his elegant prose. For example, his musings on Aretha Franklin alone are worth the price of the book, for they not only carry us from her early days of singing gospel in her father’s church, her ascent as the queen of soul, and her return to gospel after a series of personal setbacks, but also through a labyrinth of considerations of race, the role of women in the black church, sexual abuse, and the healing, transcendent power of music.
Recalling Keats, Heilbut reminds us that ‘immersion in sensation can be a fan’s highest bliss,’ and the sensations of spending a few moments in Heilbut’s company provide great bliss indeed.”
— Publishers Weekly
“There were so many moments during the reading of this book where I closed
the cover, just to sit and quietly ponder a certain page, or paragraph. What a
lovely experience.”
— Tom Mischke, WCCO (Minneapolis)
“A cook’s tour through the passions of an expert whose style is as eclectic
as his subject matter.”
— Kirkus Reviews
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“Fascinating, Interesting, a Joy.”
— Michelangelo Signorile,
Sirius Radio
“Heilbut’s
amazing new essay collection”
— Michael Schaub, NPR
“A delightful surprise,
start to finish.”
— Tommy Mischke, WCCO
“A champion book . . . smart
and endlessly playful.”
— R.J. Smith, NPR
“A Masterpiece!”
— Janet Coleman, WBAI
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Thomas Mann: Eros And Literature
“Definitive . . . This is the book to make you want to read [Mann] again.”
— Louis Bayard, The Washington Post
“An extraordinary way to look at the work of a writer who influenced so many of us. The portrait of Mann after fifty is electric.”
— Harold Brodkey
“Easily the most readable and informative guide to the intertwined life and literature of Thomas Mann . . . Even the one-liners are filled with insight and wit.”
— John Barrett, The Boston Globe
“Brilliantly perceptive about Mann’s books . . . Heilbut loves Mann’s compulsions, his masks and self-absorption . . . He relishes the clues Mann leaves, and he unearths a good number of new clues that escape the notice of the other biographers.”
— Colm Tóibín, The London Review of Books
“In a book written with great energy and verve . . . Heilbut does more than other biographers to suggest the emotional atmosphere in which Mann sat down every morning and wrote about the mystery of human sexuality and the forms it took."
— Gordon A. Craig, The New York Review of Books
more . . .
“Astonishing . . . Anthony Heilbut argues that everywhere in Mann’s writing homoerotic incidents are hidden in plain sight . . . In Mr. Heilbut’s portrayal, Mann remains one of this century’s literary giants, embodying the best of his culture as few recent figures have done.”
— Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
“Endlessly illuminating.”
— The Independent
“Heilbut is the first of the recent biographers to make complete sense of Mann, and to suggest a constellation of motives and drives for one of the most remarkable and now undervalued careers of the century.”
— Brian Morton, Scotland on Sunday
“Add to Heilbut’s definitive list Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature . . . one of the most profound considerations of homosexual literature extant.”
— Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News
Winner, The Randy Shilts Prize for Gay Non-Fiction
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Exiled In Paradise: German Refugee Artists and Intellectuals in America
from the 1930s to the Present (Second, Revised Edition)
“From one page to the next, the book transcends its stated purpose of providing a link between the history of the German-Jewish immigrants and their staggering cultural achievements to acquire the dimensions of that mysterious reality which even a Bresson cannot hope to define: a work of art.”
— Marcel Ophuls, American Film Magazine
“The story of these refugees has finally found its singular and single voice; it is that of Anthony Heilbut, himself the son of exiles . . . His book turns into something more than a panorama about foreigners. It is a way of revealing to Americans themselves what their country really is like.”
— Ariel Dorfman, The Washington Post
“Anthony Heilbut has exercised impressive scholarship, and even a touch of poetry, to get to the heart of this diaspora.”
— Time
“Still the best book on the subject.”
— Phillip Lopate, The New York Times Book Review
more . . .
“Insightful, valuable and stimulating . . . For some readers, especially the children
of generations of émigrés, the book will provide a background to their most basic intellectual assumptions.”
— Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
“I am struck by the rich, dense, solid quality of the work; It never falls into the anecdotal (which would have tempted a lesser historian) and, without sacrificing the individual and the individual groups, arrives nonetheless at an overall view of the drama of exile.”
— Marguerite Yourcenar
Finalist, The Los Angeles Times Book of the Year
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The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times
(Fourth Edition, Revised and Expanded)
“It is a very beautiful book, with love and precision, no pity — a little like a gospel song . . . I didn’t know that anybody knew that much about it, or cared that much,
or could be so tough and lucid.”
— James Baldwin
“One of the most important books ever written about any aspect of American music.”
— Henry Pleasants
“The most complete history of gospel music . . . It reads like a novel with its cast of heroes, both famous and unsung.”
— Francois-Xavier Moule, Jazz Hot
“One of the 100 Greatest Works of Non-Fiction of the Twentieth Century”
— Counter-Punch
more . . .
“A rousing, long overdue introduction to gospel music . . . These profiles of the saints of gospel challenge the stigma of ignorance, naïvete, and Uncle Tom-ism attached to gospel music. Heilbut sees the collective frenzy of gospel’s moans and shouts as an expression of ‘spirit and community welded by art’ and stresses that gospel singers minister to . . . human wreckage with nowhere else to go. He does well by the music, too.”
— New York Review of Books
“The definitive history of the most overlooked American music."
— Jon Landau, Rolling Stone
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