Kevin Chong “A Neil Young Nation”

that we always have to reanounce, this book:

Kevin Chong

Time fades away

by Cheri Hanson, Published October 2005

For Kevin Chong, a tribute to Neil Young became a meditation on getting older

Kevin Chong was ready to be let down easy.

It was March 2004, and the Vancouver writer had a new book idea. After publishing his first novel, Baroque-a-Nova, in 2001 and feeling frustrated with less-than-stellar feedback for his sophomore fiction manuscript, Chong needed a break. He turned to a personal icon and conjured up a fresh project – a distraction of sorts.

“I decided I would e-mail Scott McIntyre and tell him I wanted to write a book about Neil Young, and he would take me out to a nice place for lunch and tell me very nicely why he didn’t want to publish it,” says Chong, sipping coffee refills in a Vancouver diner. But the president of Douglas & McIntyre countered with a request for a formal pitch. “I painted myself into a corner,” says Chong. “In order not to look like a total chucklehead, I had to write a book proposal.”

That proposal became Neil Young Nation, Chong’s first non-fiction title, which D&M sister imprint Greystone Books will publish…

… and has been published since.

Books

Neil related books by Kevin Chong, Johny Barbata, and William Echard. | browse the BNB book info section | here is a review (.PDF) by Mark Dunn of “Neil Young Nation” by Kevin and also the Echard thesis | 

Kevin Chong in his book “Neil Young Nation” writes about his irreverent search for a North American icon. Neil Young is one of the most consistently popular musicians of our time. His brilliant, gnomic, lyrical music has earned him fans of all ages and persuasions. Novelist Kevin Chong counts himself among them.

Neil Young turned 60 in 2005. Kevin Chong turned 30. To celebrate these two milestones, Chong sets off on a road trip in search of his boyhood hero. Crisscrossing the continent, he follows that route that led Young to become a musical legend. He visits Winnipeg, where Young formed his first band, the Squires; Omeemee,Young’s childhood home; Los Angeles, where Young became a rock star; and many more of Young’s former haunts. He meets rabid Neil fans, talks to people who knew Young as a kid, and puzzles over Young’s strange, sometimes contradictory pronouncements. [douglas-mcintyre]

Trivia:

Kevin Chong is an (erstwhile) guitar player. Neil-fact-checking was done by Sharry. The book includes photos of Rusties.

Honorable mention of Human-Highway: “Human Highway (http://human-highway.com), an invaluable research tool and source for Neil Young news.” (p. 267)

Released in October 2005.

more on Kevin’s book on Douglas-McIntyre | Human Highway Neil Young bibliography entry |

[more info on Neil Young Bibliography: human-highway.org/biblio/biblio.html]

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