Conversations with Greil Marus

Greil Marcus once said to an interviewer, "There is an infinite amount of meaning about anything, and I free associate." For more than four decades, Marcus has explored the connections among figures, sounds, and events in culture, relating unrelated points of departure, mapping alternate histories and surprising correspondences. He is a unique and influential voice in American letters.

Marcus was born in 1945 in San Francisco. In 1969 he published his first piece, a review of Magic Bus: The Who on Tour, in Rolling Stone, where he became the magazine's first records editor. Renowned for his ongoing "Real Life Top Ten" column, Marcus has been a writer for a number of magazines and websites and is the author and editor of over fifteen books. His critique is egalitarian--no figure, object, or event is too high, low, celebrated, or obscure for an inquiry into the ways in which our lives can open outward, often unexpectedly.

In Conversations with Greil Marcus, Marcus discusses in lively, wide-ranging interviews his books and columns as well as his critical methodology and broad approach to his material, signaled by a generosity of spirit leavened with aggressive critical standards.

Joe Bonomo, DeKalb, Illinois, is assistant professor of English at Northern Illinois University. He is the author of Highway to Hell; Jerry Lee Lewis: Lost and Found; Installations; and Sweat: The Story of The Fleshtones, America's Garage Band.