Publishers Weekly
04/17/2023
Poet Winder (Marilyn in Manhattan) paints a fascinating portrait of Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, and Anita Pallenberg (1942–2017), four women who styled, wrote lyrics for, and in equal measure enraptured and enraged the Rolling Stones. Actors, models, and artists in their own right, the women helped catapult the British lads into the spotlight, styling them from their own wardrobes and introducing them to film directors, acclaimed writers, and high-society elites. But they also became targets for the band members’ frustrations and insecurities, including how Pallenberg’s relationship with Brian Jones—and its media attention—stirred up jealousy in Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, with whom she went on to have a 13-year relationship. Winder traces how the band shot to popularity even as the women’s public images nose-dived, as when a drug raid at Richards’s house found Faithfull, the only woman with the band at the time, naked under a bearskin rug: “Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll became an icon, and Marianne became... a symbol for the general moral degeneracy.” Winder’s renderings of fiery, messy love affairs, bonds and betrayals, and vicious rivalry are backed up by keenly described historical background and an expert understanding of 1960s and ’70s rock culture. The result is a wild ride worthy of rock’s heyday. (July)
From the Publisher
Apple, "Must Listen" (July 2023)Town & Country, "Best Books to Read This Summer" (July 2023)
"Winder spotlights how the vast influence of these women on the Stones has largely been hidden in the shadow of the band’s monolithic mythos... Parachute Women is a step toward according these women their rightful place in music culture..."—Washington Post
“Perhaps more fascinating than the Stones themselves are the women who helped create them… Pack this in your beach bag and you're nearly guaranteed—sorry!—satisfaction.”—Town & Country
"...[D]elicious, gossipy, glamorous, but also [an] emotional and thoughtful read... —AirMail
"Pacily written, Parachute Women is a gripping, thought-provoking read with a surprisingly broad appeal. Even the Stones-averse will find a lot to love here."—Classic Rock
"Winder expertly weaves the stories of these four women who floated in and out of the Stones’ orbit, and often simultaneously or overlapping. Far more than just 'rock chicks,' they helped mold the men and their music—even if it came at their own expense."—Houston Press
“Delicious… as a reader you're swayed between boggling at the outlaw glamour and eye-rolling at the drama and double standards. The women certainly emerge as more original and dynamic personalities than Mick'n'Keef."—Spectator (UK)
“A fascinating portrait …. backed up by keenly described historical background and an expert understanding of 1960s and ’70s rock culture. The result is a wild ride worthy of rock’s heyday.”—Publishers Weekly
"A vivid portrait of the women behind 'the world’s first rock stars'... Gossipy, entertaining, and quite right in insisting on the central role of women in making an iconic band iconic."—Kirkus
"This feminist look at the history of the women of the Rolling Stones would make an excellent addition to collections looking to round out its offerings on rock and women’s history."—Library Journal
“A multi-faceted … refreshing portrait of four women who dared to be themselves in the hypermasculine world of rock.”—Booklist
“I've been waiting for someone to write this book since I read Marianne Faithfull's memoir on a cross-country flight thirty years ago. The story of how women dismissed as consorts, groupies, and open secrets created the aesthetic that brought the Rolling Stones to glory—and significantly contributed to their music, too—has been buried too long. Winder embraces its dishiness while going deeper, showing how these brilliant, strong women shaped cultural history even as the men around them tried to contain and even destroy them.”—Ann Powers, author of Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music
New York Times on Pain
An illuminating biography.”
Library Journal
07/01/2023
Winder (Marilyn in Manhattan) offers a look into the tumultuous rise of the Rolling Stones from the perspective of the women who compelled them to become the rock icons they are today. Anita Pallenberg, Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, and Bianca Jagger opened the doors for the Stones to explore what the author calls "subterranean art and alternative lifestyles." In helping to create the aggressively masculine world of rock, however, these women found themselves demonized and written out of its history. Winder reclaims their narratives by exploring the careers and lives these influential women had outside of the Stones. She pairs extensive research with passages of conversational and creative nonfiction that make the book read like a novel. The author doesn't shy away from showing the harsh realities of life in the limelight as tabloids slander these women. Readers will likely come away from this book with a newfound appreciation for these women and their unsung contributions to creating the cultural phenomenon that is the Rolling Stones. VERDICT This feminist look at the history of the women of the Rolling Stones would make an excellent addition to collections looking to round out its offerings on rock and women's history.—Ashlynne Watson
June 2023 - AudioFile
Angelina Rocca's narration--serious but not unfriendly, exhaustive but not exhausting--sets the right tone for this audiobook about the trendsetting women associated with the Rolling Stones. Rocca convincingly conveys the author's premise that Marianne Faithful, Anita Pallenberg, Marsha Hunt, and Bianca Jagger weren't the women "behind" the Rolling Stones; they were agenda-setting equals whose influence will be forever embedded in the band. These women fulfilled roles as lovers, wives, muses, stylists, cultural guides, trendsetters, and accomplices. Though much of the material is familiar to fans of the Stones, there are still revelations about Pallenberg and Faithful, along with well-researched profiles of Hunt and Bianca Jagger. The result is a pleasant, informative pop study. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2023-04-24
A vivid portrait of the women behind “the world’s first rock stars.”
The Rolling Stones have made an incredibly long career out of singing about women. Think of all the honky-tonk denizens, ingenues out of the West End, tent-show queens, and consorts of stars who inhabit their lyrics, and it becomes clear that objectifying and mythologizing women have been major parts of their stock in trade. Winder, a biographer of Marilyn Monroe and Sylvia Plath, refreshingly turns the tables by writing about several women who were critical in various ways in shaping the Stones but whose contributions were “devoured, processed, spat out, and commodified by the relentlessly male music industry.” At the center of Winder’s narrative is the German Italian model and actor Anita Pallenberg, who, having formed a sort of androgynous duo with ill-fated band founder Brian Jones, turned him from a country lout into an Edwardian dandy, one of the first great evolutions of the Stones into style mavens. When Jones’ sad time was done, it was Keith Richards’ turn, and if anyone could out-Keith him, it was her—so much so that he had to leave her to break his heroin addiction. “Only a fool would call Anita Pallenberg a muse,” writes Winder. “She was a force of nature, and rapidly becoming the central axis of the Stones.” Meanwhile, Mick Jagger’s former lover Marianne Faithfull, who was quite capable of writing her own songs (“Sister Morphine”), fell under his…well, Winder uses thumb a couple of times too many, but the pun is apposite. Winder’s treatment is both deeply researched and endlessly dishy, especially when it comes to Jagger, who has become “a conservative Englishman,” emotionally unavailable, for whom social climber seems far too mild a term.
Gossipy, entertaining, and quite right in insisting on the central role of women in making an iconic band iconic.
