Runnin' with the devil A backstage pass to the wild times, loud rock, and the down and dirty truth behind the making of Van Halen

There are arguments about how many basic plot structures are available in literature, but in books about rock bands there seems to be just one: A scrappy group of hyperactive manchildren get together, blow the roofs off bars and then arenas, ingest enough toxic chemicals to qualify as a Superfund site, enact all of their teenage sexual fantasies, argue over money and musical direction, explode and vanish. And that's how it goes in "Runnin' With the Devil," Noel Monk's memoir recalling the years he spent in the late 1970s and early 1980 s managing Van Halen. There's plenty of sex and drugs here, along with the absurdities of the hard-rock life. Monk recalls patiently helping the Journey lead singer Steve Perry clean copious amounts of guacamole out of his "silky black hair" after the crooner had gotten caught in the crossfire of Van Halen's dressing-room food fight. We also get views of less well-known rock duties, like battling counterfeit merchandisers - an often physically confrontational task Monk took to with glee. "Just do me a favor," the head of security at one arena told him. "I don't want to find any bodies within three days of when you leave town." Monk covers the financial disputes, the family wars (brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen screaming at each other in Dutch) and the singer David Lee Roth's abrupt segue into a solo career, when he let loose "the flamboyant cabaret act that had long been trying to break through" his "hard rock exterior." But he knows the butter on this bread. "I had been with other bands that had trashed their surroundings," he writes after surveying one wrecked hotel room, "but they had nothing on Van Halen." 'In "Inheritance From Mother" I laundered, sanitized and toned down the kinds of things my mother did and said, for one reason: I wanted my novel to remain within the bounds of what is usually referred to as realism. Simply put, I wanted it to be believable.' - MINAE MIZUMURA, IN AN INTERVIEW WITH LIT HUB

Legendary rock group Van Halen went from nobodies to superstars between 1978 and 1985, and former manager Monk finally gets to tell his side of the story. After gaining the young musicians' trust as tour manager in 1978, Monk became their personal manager, albeit one who never had a long-term contract (cue impending doom music) despite the various ways he says he protected the band from those who sought to take advantage of or steal from them. As VH's success grew, so did tensions and drug consumption. After the band released the classic album 1984, with its keyboard-infused megahit "Jump," and toured behind it, their egos, personalities, and destructive habits led to Monk's firing and lead singer David Lee Roth's departure, forever changing the group. In this first insider-penned book about the original lineup (a post-lawsuit settlement statute of limitations has expired), Monk regales readers with stories of VH's tour high jinks, guitarist Eddie Van Halen's unlikely marriage to actress Valerie Bertinelli, Roth's inexplicable desire to record cheesy cover tunes when the band was at the pinnacle of its success, and much more. However, this is more than an insider's story about VH; Monk also shares fascinating firsthand information about how the music industry operated at that time. Verdict An absolute must-read for VH fans and fans of rock music memoirs.-Samantha Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.