It’s been a roller coaster of a week for Prince fans. On Thursday, an enormous auction of Prince memorabilia ended with a whimper: Out of 95 lots, only seven sold. (A pair of rhinestone handcuffs found a buyer; Prince’s first wife Mayte Garcia’s engagement ring did not.) But things started looking up Friday night, when Prince announced that he is writing a memoir, tentatively titled The Beautiful Ones.
This is great news for everyone, because the only things Prince produces as prolifically as records are completely unbelievable anecdotes. (Hairstyles are a distant third place.) There’s Questlove’s story about the custom roller skates Prince carries around in a briefcase (they shoot sparks). There’s his high school basketball career. There’s the time he wouldn’t let Three 6 Mafia into his Oscar party. And many, many more. It’s not surprising that even a minor Prince story makes a great animated short:
Now readers will finally get Prince stories straight from the man himself. Chris Jackson will edit the book for Random House imprint Spiegel & Grau. Jackson also edited Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me; Coates congratulated him on the new book on Twitter:
The publisher describes the book in a press release as “an unconventional and poetic journey through his life and creative work—from the family that shaped him and the people, places, and ideas that fired his creative imagination, to the stories behind the music that changed the world.” Which is all well and good, but doesn’t answer the most important questiont—there’s still no word from Jackson or Prince as to whether or not the book will contain the White Whale of Prince stories. When it’s released in fall of 2017, it’ll be a sure thing that the person at the bookstore surreptitiously flipping through The Beautiful Ones will be checking the index for entries on “Murphy, Charlie,” “basketball, possibly apocryphal late-night game of” and “pancakes, recipes for.”
