He trashed Bobby Darin, in my opinion.....a classic "sour grapes" book! He calls Bobby his friend but I would surely hope a "friend" of mine would NEVER do to me what Steve Karmen has done after making a great career for himself! All these years later to write such a derogatory book about his friend is unforgiveable and with Bobby unable to defend his position in any way! I would not recommend this book.

Very well written with some great personal insight.

I think this is one of the better bios of Bobby D (and Steve K, tho' I bought it for Bobby of course) in spite of some flaws. I liked that fact that, thanks to the level of detail and transcripts of conversations, Bobby Darin was a vivid presence in this book unlike in most bios of him. I also think it mostly rings true, since early BD was a very aggressive, confident, and determined individual who did not stumble into stardom but worked hard for it. Steve K is clearly jealous and bitter about Darin's success after leaving him behind, but he's also pretty honest about those emotions and acknowledging them earns him some credibility.

In addition, Steve K is honest enough to include passages where Darin and Darin's manager tell Steve K up front early on that he is *only* accompanying Darin to a Detroit night club engangement to help Darin with *his* act and *his* career and to reduce Darin's nervousness at his first engagement. So Steve was warned immediately that he was just along for Bobby's ride, at Bobby's personal expense in fact, and those were terms he readily agreed to up front. As a result he forfits a lot of the justification for his bitterness. He was not mislead or lied to unless he lied to himself. So he shouldn't have been horribly shocked when that's exactly how events unfolded, tho' I doubt that he expected to be so completely dismissed from Bobby's life. (And I think the reason for his total dismissal was jealousy on Darin's part because Karmen was more classically handsome and thereby a bit of a threat to upstage the more charismatic Darin.)

But mostly ringing true means that some rang false. Most significant is that Karmen's timeline sometimes doesn't jibe with reality, esp in the last chapter. For example he describes meeting with "Bob" Darin (Bobby's late life folk incarnation in which he spurned the show biz plastic tux and toupee in favor of denim and accustic guitars and protest songs) November of 1972 - a year before Darin's death.

Sorry but that's impossible. "Bob" Darin was retired by 1970 at the latest - a full two years earlier. And by the time Karmen claims to have reunited with "Bob" Darin at the Desert Inn, Darin was again in tux and toupee and doing middle of the road material mixed with his beloved folk and R&B material. It's very distracting when he's describing a scenario that couldn't have taken place when and as described.

Along the same lines, he claims that he basically never saw Darin from 1956 to 1973 (aside from attending Polly's funeral and a copa show), yet numerous accounts in other books, and his appearance in photos, have him in Darin's presence in the late 50's.

I also share the scepticism of those who doubt he could remember hundreds of pages of verbatim converstation decades later. It's just a bit of a red flag, but I think he probably remembers the gist of it. And the conversation is so instrumental in bringing the characters to life that I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

He also takes a few cheap shots, implying that there was something pathetic about the later day Darin when in fact he was a superstar whose body, through no fault of his own, was simply wearing out and betraying him.

Regardless of these quibbles, this books provides one of the most vivid portrayals, along with Dream Lover, of Bobby Darin - who earned his superstar status in spite of bad health and in spite of sour grapes from Steve Karmen.

This book was published during the highly anticipated (and just as highly-disappointed) bio-pic on Bobby Darin was being released. Undoubtly Steve Karmen was a good friend of Bobby Darin's and this story is intended to take the reader along on a fateful summer as the two head out to promote Bob's latest song (Rock Island Line) and find fame and fortune in a nightclub. Although the story may be true, Karmen seems to want to reflect more about his being delegated to the back of the band rather than put more into the real character of Darin. From what I have read, Karmen was there during the real formative years of Darin's career, but I felt like he was telling only part of the story here.

This is THE BEST show business biography that I have EVER read !
Not withstanding that this is about Bobby Darin, this book gives the BEST account of how a Star is created...and yes, it isn't all just "Chance", it involves delicate construction, and LOTS of hard work.
For Bobby Darin fans, this is a treasure trove of information, that ONLY a Best Friend could share with us. The author's unvarnished account here is vividly written, so that the reader is "included", if you will, in this life-career, defining moment.
ATTENTION TO THOSE COMPLAINING ABOUT THE DETAILED CONVERSATIONS and RECOLLECTIONS: We all have experienced personal, life defining "moments", where we had to make choices, that we have had to live with, the rest of our lives. They will be forever, etched into our consciousness, like a jackhammer into granite.
To intimate, that the author could not state each word of a conversation, that was held decades ago, is a cheap shot and totally made without any foundation of fact or reality.
The book is awesome ! It may change your life, too !
Mr. Karmen's recollections are deeply, and personally felt. It's our privilege to relive them, with him.

I can understand this memoir from the authors perspective. We all know Darin like everyone had his faults but his talent was unmeasureable. Steve had talent also but his forte was another area. Still an informative book on the very early years when Darin was trying to get off the bottom rung. I guess we would all be a little obnowious if we knew we only had a few years to make a mark, and what a mark it happened to be,