The Uncool: A Memoir

by Cameron Crowe

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

An unprecedented tour of the heyday of rock and roll, paired with the heartfelt personal narrative of Cameron Crowe, who lived and breathed music while rising to remarkable heights himself. If you’ve ever wished you could have scored backstage passes to your favorite rock concert, this is the book for you.

Cameron Crowe was an unlikely rock and roll insider. Born in 1957 to parents who strictly banned the genre from their house, he dove headfirst into the world of music. By the time he graduated high school at fifteen, Crowe was contributing to Rolling Stone. The Uncool offers a front-row ticket to the 1970s, a golden era for music and art when rock was young. It's also a surprisingly intimate family drama. This memoir is an essential read for music lovers or anyone chasing their wildest dreams. At the end of that roller-coaster journey, you might just find what you were looking for: Your place in the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781420530254
Publisher:	Thorndike Press, A Cengage Group
Publication date:	11/26/2025
Edition description:	Large Print
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Cameron Crowe became Rolling Stone’s youngest-ever contributor as a fifteen-year-old high school graduate, going on to conduct all-time best interviews with the likes of Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Elton John, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and the Who. Crowe is also an acclaimed filmmaker who has written and directed films including Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Say Anything..., Singles, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, and Almost Famous (for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay). He wrote the definitive book on the work of writer-director Billy Wilder, Conversations with Wilder. Crowe is currently at work on a film based on the life and music of Joni Mitchell. He has three children and lives in Southern California.

Editorial Reviews

★ 2025-08-01
I was a teenage journalist.

In this deceptively breezy memoir, Crowe recounts his upbringing in San Diego and his teenage adventures as a rock journalist. In a series of short, lively chapters, many of which open with an aphorism from his mother, Crowe lovingly portrays his parents and siblings without shying away from his oldest sister’s depression, institutionalization, and suicide. He also reflects on his first record reviews written for an underground newspaper, his subsequent work forRolling Stone, and his brushes with everyone from Kris Kristofferson to the Ramones. Always the prodigy, Crowe was painfully aware of his youthful innocence, which paradoxically helped him cover the hedonistic rock scene of the 1970s. He also developed a knack for self-deprecating humor, which he deploys throughout the memoir, beginning with its title. (After rock critic Lester Bangs reminded Crowe how uncool he was, his nerdiness became a badge of honor.) Following his journalistic triumphs atRolling Stone, Crowe wroteFast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), which launched his film career. He eventually wrote, directed, and landed an Oscar forAlmost Famous (2000), the winsome coming-of-age story that his memoir often evokes and fleshes out. Crowe has relatively little to say about his Hollywood years, and he is tight-lipped about his own marriage and children. The memoir opens and closes with the stage adaptation ofAlmost Famous, whose 2019 opening in San Diego coincided with his mother’s demise. She was obsessed with the play, Crowe tells his readers, but its topic clearly preoccupies him as well. “All of this will be forgotten,” David Bowie told Crowe while driving through Los Angeles in the 1970s, when the Eagles took flight. Crowe’s love letter to that place, time, and music puts Bowie’s prophecy to the test.

A winning blend of family portrait, rock history, and coming-of-age movies.

Kirkus Reviews