Dandelion: Memoir of a Free Spirit Book

“The rare celebrity-crammed memoir that would be worth reading even without the bold-faced names."—Kirkus Reviews

Catherine James’ neglect by her young, beautiful mother cast a shadow over her Los Angeles childhood and made her long not for normalcy, but just for escape. Escape to her beloved grandmother Mimi, or to her Aunt Claire, a former beauty queen who'd had a glamorous life with ex-husband Busby Berkeley. Escape to her father, a race car driver who had been out of her life almost since the day she was born. Escape even to school, where she would at least be taken care of. Instead, Catherine was finally abandoned by her furious mother to become a ward of the state before she reached her teens.

A chance meeting with a very young Bob Dylan inspired Catherine to run away with only one goal: to get to Greenwich Village. Dandelion follows Catherine’s extraordinary life, as she is entranced by Eric Clapton; taken up by the beautiful people in Andy Warhol’s Factory; and begins romances with rockers Jackson Browne and Jimmy Page.

While raising her son, whose father was Denny Laine of the Moody Blues and Wings, Catherine finally returns to her West Coast roots, reconnects with her family and discovers that her mother hasn’t changed but her father has: he’s become a heartbreakingly garish transsexual. Moving and shocking by turns, Dandelion is a completely different view of a celebrated pop culture scene, and a fractured mother-daughter relationship.

“James’ story…take[s] this movingly written autobiography well beyond the realm of sex, drugs and rock & roll.”—Music Connection

Publishers Weekly

Like Pamela Des Barres (I'm with the Band), James was a California It Girl and very young groupie of the early rock-and-rollers, and in this candid, workmanlike autobiography, she shares her accidental fame. James was the product of beautiful, well-connected Beverly Hills parents who divorced: the father became a transvestite, coming out to James when she was a young adult at Musso & Frank's in Hollywood, as depicted in a wild opening chapter; the mother, Diana, went through a succession of husbands and eventually relinquished caretaking of her daughter to the state. Having dated Bob Dylan by age 13, James ran away from the Visa Del Mar orphanage to New York and hung out at Andy Warhol's Factory. She met Denny Laine of the Moody Blues, who became an abusive husband and father of her child while she was still in her teens. She shopped on Kings Road in Chelsea and partied with members of the Beatles, the Who and the Rolling Stones, among others. When the marriage didn't work, she took her son back to California and romanced Jackson Browne. Somehow James makes do with a little help from her friends, finding modeling work, doubling for Diane Keaton and going back to school. Ever cheery, never self-pitying, her memoir is by turns insipid and sweet. (Oct.)