Thompson to highlight Dylan Days 2008 literary events
Dylan Days is proud
to announce that Toby Thompson will be
the 2008 feature author during this year’s arts and literature event.
On
Friday, May 23 Thompson will conduct a writing workshop at the Hibbing
High
School Library from 9-11 a.m. (advanced registration required) Thompson
will then
speak at the Literary Event on Saturday, May 24 at 2:30 p.m. in the
Hibbing Community
College Theatre.
For more information, e-mail info@dylandays.com or visit www.dylandays.com.
Bob Dylan’s Minnesota
by Toby Thompson
Publication date: May 2008
University of Minnesota Press $15.95 Paper ISBN 978-0-8166-5445-1 192 pages 5 3/8 x 8 1/2
A young writer uncovers Bob Dylan’s past, back when music mattered
“Toby Thompson was there first.” —Greil Marcus
“That boy . . . this fellow, Toby . . . has got some lessons to learn.” —Bob Dylan, Rolling Stone, November 29, 1969
“A first-rate novelistic account of Thompson’s own psyche as he uncovers the Dylan few people know. A new look at young Dylan done with kindness, enthusiasm and superb language.” — William Kennedy, Look Magazine
“Essential reading. Thompson, unprecedentedly, managed to interview not only Echo Helstrom, almost certainly the ‘Girl of the North Country,’ but Dylan’s mother and brother, his uncle, his friends.” — Michael Gray’s Bob Dylan Encyclopedia
“Dylan fans will not want to miss this book.” —Sioux City Journal
“Well worth the attention of anyone who has fallen under the spell of the boy from the North Country.” —Los Angeles Times
In the late sixties, Toby Thompson enthusiastically took off for Hibbing, Minnesota, in search of Bob Dylan’s roots. Thompson grooves on the story of Dylan’s beginnings, meeting the locals who knew Bobby Zimmerman the loner, not Bob Dylan the legend. With unprecedented access to Dylan’s English and music teachers, his high school girlfriend Echo Helstrom, and countless neighbors and relatives, Thompson discovers the real person behind the mythology Dylan created. This updated version includes an interview with the author, previously unpublished photographs, and a new preface by Thompson.
Toby Thompson is associate professor of creative writing at Penn State University and the author of Saloon and The ’60s Report. He has also written for numerous magazines including Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Playboy, and Esquire.
Please consider a review, excerpt, or feature of Positively Main Street, or an interview with the author. Please contact Heather Skinner, Publicist, at presspr@umn.edu or 612-627-1932 with questions, requests, or comments.
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For more information, please visit
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/T/thompson_positively.html