Perfect Day: An Intimate Portrait Of Life With Lou Reed

‘Hey, you! Beautiful!’

The voice was compelling—an order. So I turned around.

‘Yeah, you,’ he said. ‘What are you doing in here? You look normal.’

‘I am,’ I said.

Bettye Kronstad met Lou Reed in 1968 as a nineteen-year-old Columbia University student; they were married, briefly, in 1973. Their relationship spanned some of the most pivotal years of his life and career, from the demise of The Velvet Underground to the writing and recording of his seminal solo masterpieces Transformer, for which L...