A Fan Looks at Karen Carpenter

Samberg, Joel.  Some Kind of Lonely Clown: The Music, Memory, and Melancholy Lives of Karen
       Carpenter.  Albany, GA: BearManor Media, 2016.  ISBN: 9781593938697

Joel Samberg combines biography with memories and musical analysis in Some Kind of Lonely Clown.  This mixture provides a melange of memory for a singer who left too soon.

Some Kind of Lonely Clown is Joel Samberg's take on Karen Carpenter's life filtered through his memories, memories of those who knew her whom he interviewed, published documents, public interviews, viewings of concerts, and a leavening of professional analysis of her mental state and physical condition.  He provides a reasonable short biography spliced between chapters on her professional life/career.  He provides at least the highlights of The Carpenters as a group and a chapter on Karen Carpenter's one solo album.  Not content to just provide facts, Samberg examines the music, rating albums and songs, while using the music sang to interpret Karen's internal struggle.

If you enjoy The Carpenters, you are likely to find something to like and/or dislike in  Some Kind of Lonely Clown.  If you have not caught The Carpenters fever, what are you waiting for?  Listen to some Carpenters' music and see what you think.