Prior to his shocking death in 2016, The Purple One was working on a memoir. And while he didn’t live to execute his vision, it looks like he’ll be blessing us from beyond the grave on October 29.
MPR News, via the Associated Press, reports that book publisher Random House has entered into an exclusive partnership with Prince’s estate to release The Beautiful Ones, which will combine his unfinished manuscript with a collection of rare photos, scrapbooks and lyrics. The 288-page book will include an introduction by New Yorker writer Dan Piepenbring, whom Prince chose as a collaborator prior to his passing.
“‘The Beautiful Ones’ is the deeply personal account of how Prince Rogers Nelson became the Prince we know: the real-time story of a kid absorbing the world around him and creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and the fame that would come to define him,” Random House announced.
The book will span from Prince’s childhood to his early years as a musician to the cusp of international stardom, using Prince’s own writings, a scrapbook of his personal photos, and the original handwritten lyric sheets for many of his most iconic songs, which he kept at Paisley Park. The book depicts Prince’s evolution through deeply revealing, never-before-shared images and memories and culminates with his original handwritten treatment for his masterwork, ‘Purple Rain.’”
Piepenberg’s introduction will delve into Prince’s final days, “a time when Prince was thinking deeply about how to reveal more of himself and his ideas to the world, while retaining the mystery and mystique he’d so carefully cultivated.”
Chris Jackson, the book’s editor, describes the memoir as “a beautiful tribute to his life.”
“It’s also much more than that: it’s a genuinely moving and energizing literary work, full of Prince’s ideas and vision, his voice and image,” Jackson said in a statement. “It’s a treasure not just for Prince fans but for anyone who wants to see one of our greatest creative artists and original minds at work on his greatest creation: himself.”
You can pre-order The Beautiful Ones at Amazon and other retailers.