Very fine.

Hermes' captivating new biography, fires on all cylinders: It's exhaustively researched and opinionated, with a swagger that evokes its volatile subject. For most of the book there's precious little of Reed's later domesticity.

The achievement of Will Hermes’s book King of New York is, first, in how thoughtfully it contains Reed. It affixes Reed to his central muse: New York City. And, in doing so, it considers Reed through a very specific frame.

Many of the details in the book have been reported elsewhere before by people who were actually friends with Reed...but Hermes invokes them with a current tone that’s favorable toward, but not overly forgiving of, the notoriously prickly Reed..

Layered, nuanced.

Hermes expertly conjures the different scenes Reed inhabited, placing him amid a rich cast of collaborators, friends and lovers. There’s a sense that he’s updating Reed for a new generation, particularly as a prophet of queer liberation and gender nonconformity.

This title is for mega-fans and those wishing they could’ve lived in New York when it was all going down..

Powerful...[a] biographical magnum opus..

An engrossing, fully dimensional portrait of an influential yet elusive performer..