Love Affair - by Leslie Kenton (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

A searing literary memoir of a disconnected childhood, a multigenerational upbringing and incest-- from the daughter of legendary jazz pianist Stan Kenton

Leslie Kenton was the only child of Violet, a stunning Hitchcock blonde, and the legendary jazz giant Stan Kenton. The story takes place on the road in 1950s America and in the mania of Hollywood--a world of jazz clubs, dance halls and onenighters, where lives were lived on a razor's edge.

Love Affair takes us beyond the bright lights and glamour into an intense, claustrophobic world of a father and the only child of his troubled marriage. As Stanley grapples with alcohol and his personal demons, gradually his actions threaten to destroy the only real, untainted thing in his life: Leslie.

A true story of obsession, tragedy and grace, Love Affair is Leslie Kenton's powerful memoir. At its heart is the complex, ultimately incestuous, relationship with her father-a union so powerful it defines all that came after. As their lives become increasingly entangled, so do the forces of darkness and light that exist within us all, leading to destruction for him and heartbreaking redemption for her.

There have been memoirs about incest before, but Love Affair is a surprisingly moving and elegant treatment of a young life, shared passion, and boundaries crossed.

Review Quotes

"Stan Kenton's orchestra captured the world's imagination in the late 1940s, just as other swing bands were fading. For the next three decades, he would be the most popular bandleader who played what was, essentially, art music. Unlike Count Basie's band, Kenton's didn't play primarily for dancers. Unlike Woody Herman's, it didn't have an entertaining, singing showman up front. Unlike Duke Ellington's, it didn't have a repertoire of well-known, original popular songs to bring in crowds. Yet Kenton was a master of marketing: He packaged and sold the concepts of newness and modernity to a pop-music audience.
At first his experiments ran parallel to the beboppers, who were likewise introducing a more sophisticated harmonic system into jazz. Along with Dizzy Gillespie, Kenton introduced Afro-Cuban polyrhythms to North America. And where Ellington famously disdained categories, Kenton reveled in creating terms like "artistry in rhythm" and "progressive jazz." His music was atR

About the Author

LESLIE KENTON is an award-winning writer, broadcaster and filmmaker who has written more than thirty books on health, beauty and spirituality, many of them bestsellers in the UK. She conceived the Origins product line for Estee Lauder, and was the first chairperson of The Natural Medicine Society in Great Britain. She lives in London and New Zealand.