Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan
Description
A literary and visual exploration of the songs of Steely Dan.
Steely Dan's songs are exercises in fictional world-building. No one else in the classic-rock canon has conjured a more vivid cast of rogues and heroes, creeps and schmucks, lovers and dreamers and cold-blooded operators--or imbued their characters with so much humanity. Pulling from history, lived experience, pulp fiction, the lore of the counterculture, and their own darkly comic imaginations, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker summoned protagonists who seemed like fully formed people with complicated pasts, scars they don't talk about, delusions and desires and memories they can't shake. From Rikki to Dr. Wu, Hoops McCann to Kid Charlemagne, Franny from NYU to the Woolly Man without a Face, every name is a locked-room mystery, beguiling listeners and earning the band an exceptionally passionate and ever-growing cult fandom.Quantum Criminals presents the world of Steely Dan as it has never been seen, much less heard. Artist Joan LeMay has crafted lively, color-saturated images of her favorite characters from the Daniverse to accompany writer Alex Pappademas's explorations of the famous and obscure songs that inspired each painting, in short essays full of cultural context, wild speculation, inspired dot-connecting, and the occasional conspiracy theory. All of it is refracted through the perspectives of the characters themselves, making for a musical companion unlike any other. Funny, discerning, and visually stunning, Quantum Criminals is a singular celebration of Steely Dan's musical cosmos.
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About the Author
Alex Pappademas is the author of Keanu Reeves: Most Triumphant--The Movies & Meaning of an Irrepressible Icon and the writer and host of the acclaimed podcast The Big Hit Show. His work has also appeared in GQ, the New York Times, and Grantland.
Joan LeMay is an artist based in London and New York City (although the paintings for this book were created in Portland). Her work appears in multiple publications and books and has been shown in museums, galleries, and public spaces internationally.
Reviews
Quantum Criminals is one of the sharpest, funniest, and best books ever about any rock artist.
-- "Rolling Stone" (5/14/2023 12:00:00 AM)Weird and wondrous...Quantum Criminals fairly drips with information...and I have drunk it in eagerly...The writing in Quantum Criminals is often arresting and always engaging pop-music journalism...Quantum Criminals is a reminder that one can be massively fulfilled by language one doesn't fully comprehend.-- "New York Times" (4/18/2023 12:00:00 AM)
Remarkable...we finally have a book about Steely Dan in which the writing and art fully measure up to the sophistication and beauty of Becker and Fagen's music...Pappademas's incisive, elegant prose poetry pairs perfectly with LeMay's colorful hand-painted portraits that offer humorous and empathetic glimpses of the Dan's menagerie of luckless pedestrians.-- "Expanding Dan" (4/19/2023 12:00:00 AM)
Wonderfully weird and insightful...the Steeliest of all the Steely Dan books out there. And it's wholly refreshing...There have been a number of fine books on Steely Dan, but Quantum Criminals is the one whose spirit, vivacity, and off-kilterness matches its subjects and their body of work.-- "Houston Press" (4/13/2023 12:00:00 AM)
Alex Pappademas reveals the stories behind many of [Steely Dan's] songs and, in the process, gives us a book that shows what the right kind of obsession leads to--joyful, contagious passion. Featuring terrific illustrations by Joan LeMay, this is a fascinating, fun, and deep dive into the stories behind the music and the men who created it...After you read this book, you'll never be able to forget the genius of these two writers.-- "Air Mail" (5/27/2023 12:00:00 AM)
Whether you count the current Danaissance as something entirely new or another turn in a recurring cycle, and even if you're among those who find the band too weird or jazzy, it's undeniable the Dan endures. Quantum Criminals is an entertaining and insightful account of why.-- "The Washington Free Beacon" (6/25/2023 12:00:00 AM)
Pappademas offers a lively series of ruminations about individual songs, loosely pegged to the characters who populate those songs and who are rendered in playfully detailed and colorful portraits by LeMay. The result is both a celebration and an artifact of the current Steely Dan moment...In sharp and funny chapters, Pappademas riffs on [Steely Dan's] cast of characters in ways that capture the band's cultural context and musical debts.
-- "The Atlantic" (5/10/2023 12:00:00 AM)[Quantum Criminals] uncovers the vast constellation of lyrical references, artistic influences and social and political contexts surrounding the band and its music.
-- "NPR Music" (5/17/2023 12:00:00 AM)Wry, playful but deeply incisive...Fagen, Becker...and Pappademas are kindred spirits, smartass, sharp-eyed observers of life's El Supremos--a description that suits other Dan fans as well. Quantum Criminals is like a secret handshake between two covers. The best part is that it illuminates details the rest of us may have glossed over for years.
-- "Los Angeles Times" (5/22/2023 12:00:00 AM)In one fell swoop, [Quantum Criminals] has become the essential Steely Dan book. And you should absolutely be reading it right now...Pappademas and LeMay leave no stones unturned in their quest to unlock every mythological quadrant of Steely Dan's immense, decades-long artistic conceptions.
-- "Paste" (5/23/2023 12:00:00 AM)A whimsical plunge into one of America's most unconventional rock bands...[A] delicious deep dive into the many protagonists in the 'Steely Daniverse'...LeMay's vibrant paintings--more than 100 of which are included in the book--provide yet another kaleidoscopic lens through which to consider the duo's wild imaginations. Any major dude will tell you that this is a solid and highly entertaining take on Fagen and Becker's 'platonic love story.'
-- "Kirkus" (5/19/2023 12:00:00 AM)[An] engaging and illuminating way to tell the band's history...Quantum Criminals is undoubtedly the best thing I've ever read about this endearingly strange and endlessly fascinating band.
-- "The Forward" (5/17/2023 12:00:00 AM)An engrossing series of essays that innovatively chart the cosmology of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's musical universe...[A] terrific and irresistible book.
-- "Talkhouse" (5/23/2023 12:00:00 AM)These song-based essays are part band biography, trenchant culture criticism, poignant '70s history, and psychedelic tone poems. Like Steely Dan's tunes, they toe the line between an unbridled reverence for the music and esoteric sensibilities. I read it in a day and came out with an even deeper respect for their catalog.
-- "No Expectations" (4/27/2023 12:00:00 AM)This is the finest piece of rock journalism that I have read in a long time.
-- "Religion News Service" (5/24/2023 12:00:00 AM)Steely Dan fans should love this book. And if you're not a fan of that non-band band, but love good writing about rock music, Quantum Criminals is still worth reading.-- "Milwaukee Shepherd Express" (4/21/2023 12:00:00 AM)
For those who are anywhere from casual listeners to hardcore Dan Fans, this book is an unceasing delight from cover to cover...Engrossing, well-written, with vivid, whimsical illustrations, Quantum Criminals is the literary equivalent of a Steely Dan album: vibrant, a little strange, and nearly perfect.-- "Spectrum Culture" (6/5/2023 12:00:00 AM)
Writer Alex Pappademas and painter Joan Lemay...go beyond explanation to produce the definitive Danomicon with this expansively argued and vibrantly illustrated survey of the songs, lyrics and characters populating the whole Steely Dan catalog.-- "Tertulia" (6/1/2023 12:00:00 AM)
