To Hell and Back
Language: English
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 1999
- Hardcover
- Used

Seller: World of Books Inc, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.World of Books Inc
AbeBooks seller since March 23, 2026
Condition: Used - Good
£ 9.06
Quantity: 2 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
"poor fat marvin can't wear levi's!"a radio advertisement boomed as a 240-pound seventh grader named Marvin Lee Aday shuddered in humiliation. Parents said he was "too fat" to play with their children, and his classmates picked on him, even ganging up to lock him in a storage box. Unflatteringly nicknamed "Meat Loaf" by his alcoholic father, prone to getting concussions (seventeen in all), and drawn to musical theater, no one pegged this misfit kid to become a rock star. That is, until he recorded the third best-selling album of all time. In To Hell and Back, Meat Loaf reveals his amazing story--a rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches life that would rival most fiction. As a boy, he had to face down lowlifes straight out of Deliverance in order to fetch his drunken father out of gutbucket saloons--the same father who would later try to kill him with a butcher knife. He was at Parkland Hospital when JFK was declared dead, picked up a hitchhiker who happened to be Charles Manson, got recruited for the musical Hair while trying to get a job as a parking attendant, and starred in a movie that became the biggest cult film of all time, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. From there, he collaborated with Jim Steinman to make a record called Bat Out of Hell, which went from being laughed at and rejected by every music executive in the industry to selling more than 28 million copies and launching Meat Loaf into international superstardom. Meat's story would be incredible if it stopped right there. But that's just the beginning. The heights to which Meat had soared were matched only by the depth of his plunge back into the abyss. In a swirl of devious managers, drugs, lawyers, guns, money, nervous breakdowns (including the psychosomatic loss of his voice), and more lawsuits than he could count, Meat Loaf lost it all. He was bankrupt, his relationship with best friend and collaborator, Jim Steinman, turned ugly, and his wife, having a nervous breakdown of her own, was considering a divorce. But the hardest-working man in rock and roll would not stay down. Returning to his family he set out with them to conquer the world again, club by club and through word of mouth--a struggle that culminated in a reunion with Steinman, the Grammy Award-winning release of Bat out of Hell II, and a return to the limelight. Illustrated with dozens of previously unpublished photographs, Meat Loaf's story is--like Meat Loaf himself--larger than life.…
Seller Inventory # CIN0060392932G
- Title
- To Hell and Back
- Author
- Meatloaf
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers Inc
- Publication year
- 1999
- Condition
- Good
- Binding
- Hardback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0060392932
- ISBN 13
- 9780060392932
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review
It's fantastic to report that this is the huge, bombastic rags-to-riches-back-to-rags-back-to-riches tale that it really should be, with Meat coming across as a thoroughly charismatic madman--with thanks, no doubt, to the homely style and incisive editing of ghostwriter David Dalton. The gothic-styled To Hell And Back is replete with tales of fingerless drummers, arms-dealing managers and perpetually overdosing lead guitarists, and while Meat seems slightly horrified by his own excesses, even the doldrums are here in gory detail. "I've blacked out the whole thing," says Meat, of laying Mum to rest, "but apparently what I did at the funeral service was pull my mother out of the casket and say they couldn't have her. I actually lifted her into my arms, and people were horrified."
From the depths of cocaine psychosis, all paid for by the multi-million selling Bat Out Of Hell, Meat pulls back from the brink and when Bat Out Of Hell II makes him a superstar again, even the critics are onside. "When Rolling Stone reviewed the concert in Madison Square Garden and gave us a rave, I nearly had a heart attack and died. I literally got dizzy, fainted" explains Meat, proudly. Steady on, big guy--what they're saying about To Hell And Back might just spark off a full cardiac arrest. --Louis Pattison
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
World of Books Inc
Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since March 23, 2026
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