From Publishers Weekly
"I'm hardly the first person to notice that there is only the present, constantly," writes Barton in this extraordinary memoir. "The present moment is lived, and relieved; written, and rewritten. Every previous version still inhabits it." What gives this insight and the many others that follow uncommon power is the ever present fact that Barton, a pioneering entrepreneur in the cable television industry, was dying of stomach cancer as he wrote them. Alternating chapters with mystery writer Shames (The Naked Detective), Barton, who died in September, 2002, at 51, offers us-and his wife and three children-his final rewrite of a life filled with the optimism and idealism of his generation. Barton tells us how it feels to die while the party is still raging, offering us glimpses of a life that packed in everything from being a professional ski bum to working as an aide to New York State governor Hugh Carey to huge success as a visionary businessman (Barton helped found MTV, among other achievements). Readers will be knocked out by his honesty and his utter lack of self-pity or sentimentality. The "gift" of terminal cancer, according to Barton, is that "it doesn't kill you all at once. It gives you time to set your house in order.... It gives you time to think, to sum things up." Setting his house in order included taking his family for a balloon ride at dawn. Summing up what matters, he reminds us that it is the large and small moments of pleasure and love, those very present moments, that redeem us in the end. This is a very beautiful book about how to live. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"Peter Barton and Laurence Shames, the graceful writer he persuaded to help him tell this tale, have produced a worthy monument, a book about how to live, and how to die."
--Ken Auletta
"This is a wise, funny, and intensely true book--a generous gift from an amazing guy to those of us who are so busy getting through life that we sometimes forget why we're living. Sooner or later, we'll all make the journey Peter Barton took; now, thanks to him, it doesn't look so scary."
--Dave Barry
"A little masterpiece. . . a book to be read by everyone. . . . [It] may be the most honest book I have ever read. . . . Some of [the] phrases and sentences literally took my breath away. . . . [Not Fade Away] lit up my own mind and spirit--dare I include soul?--to consider my own life and purposes."
--Jim Lehrer
"You couldn't know Peter Barton and not know he would face dying in the most adventurous and original way. . . . This is a book full of insight and comfort, wisdom and hope."
--Barry Diller
Review
"Peter Barton and Laurence Shames, the graceful writer he persuaded to help him tell this tale, have produced a worthy monument, a book about how to live, and how to die."
--Ken Auletta
"This is a wise, funny, and intensely true book--a generous gift from an amazing guy to those of us who are so busy getting through life that we sometimes forget why we're living. Sooner or later, we'll all make the journey Peter Barton took; now, thanks to him, it doesn't look so scary."
--Dave Barry
"A little masterpiece. . . a book to be read by everyone. . . . [It] may be the most honest book I have ever read. . . . Some of [the] phrases and sentences literally took my breath away. . . . [Not Fade Away] lit up my own mind and spirit--dare I include soul?--to consider my own life and purposes."
--Jim Lehrer
"You couldn't know Peter Barton and not know he would face dying in the most adventurous and original way. . . . This is a book full of insight and comfort, wisdom and hope."
--Barry Diller
Review
"Peter Barton and Laurence Shames, the graceful writer he persuaded to help him tell this tale, have produced a worthy monument, a book about how to live, and how to die."
--Ken Auletta
"This is a wise, funny, and intensely true book--a generous gift from an amazing guy to those of us who are so busy getting through life that we sometimes forget why we're living. Sooner or later, we'll all make the journey Peter Barton took; now, thanks to him, it doesn't look so scary."
--Dave Barry
"A little masterpiece. . . a book to be read by everyone. . . . [It] may be the most honest book I have ever read. . . . Some of [the] phrases and sentences literally took my breath away. . . . [Not Fade Away] lit up my own mind and spirit--dare I include soul?--to consider my own life and purposes."
--Jim Lehrer
"You couldn't know Peter Barton and not know he would face dying in the most adventurous and original way. . . . This is a book full of insight and comfort, wisdom and hope."
--Barry Diller
Book Description
Some people are born to lead and destined to teach--not by precept, but by the example of living life to the fullest. Peter Barton was that kind of person.
He protested at Columbia University in the 1960s, played soul music at Harlem's Apollo Theater, spent time as a ski bum and a craps dealer, and eventually emerged from Harvard Business School to become a central figure in the creation of cable television. In the prime of his life, happily married and the father of three young children, Peter came face to face with the biggest challenge in a life filled with risk-taking and direction-changing. Diagnosed with cancer, he began a journey both frightening and appalling, yet also full of wonder and discovery.
Not Fade Away recreates that journey in the intimate and alternating voices of Peter and of Laurence Shames--two men close in age yet who've chosen vastly different lives. Together, in a spirit of deepening friendship, they relive the high points of years that embodied the hopes and strivings of an entire generation. With courage, candor, and even humor, they search for meaning in Peter's unflinching confrontation with mortality.
In life, Peter was an overachieving Everyman, a vibrant spirit who showed his peers just how much is possible. In his dying, similarly, he redefines the quietly heroic tasks of seeking clarity in the midst of pain and loss; of breaking through to a highly personal, secular faith; and of achieving peace at last.
From the Inside Flap
Some people are born to lead and destined to teach--not by precept, but by the example of living life to the fullest. Peter Barton was that kind of person. He protested at Columbia University in the 1960s, played soul music at Harlem's Apollo Theater, spent time as a ski bum and a craps dealer, and eventually emerged from Harvard Business School to become a central figure in the creation of cable television. In the prime of his life, happily married and the father of three young children, Peter came face to face with the biggest challenge in a life filled with risk-taking and direction-changing. Diagnosed with cancer, he began a journey both frightening and appalling, yet also full of wonder and discovery. Not Fade Away recreates that journey in the intimate and alternating voices of Peter and of Laurence Shames--two men close in age yet who've chosen vastly different lives. Together, in a spirit of deepening friendship, they relive the high points of years that embodied the hopes and strivings of an entire generation. With courage, candor, and even humor, they search for meaning in Peter's unflinching confrontation with mortality. In life, Peter was an overachieving Everyman, a vibrant spirit who showed his peers just how much is possible. In his dying, similarly, he redefines the quietly heroic tasks of seeking clarity in the midst of pain and loss; of breaking through to a highly personal, secular faith; and of achieving peace at last. "Peter Barton and Laurence Shames, the graceful writer he persuaded to help him tell this tale, have produced a worthy monument, a book about how to live, and how to die." --Ken Auletta Peter Barton was a founder and CEO of Liberty Media and a passionate advocate for such innovative programming as the Discovery Channel, Fox Sports Net, Black Entertainment Television, and QVC. After leaving Liberty in 1997, he devoted himself to philanthropy and education. He taught a graduate business course in entrepreneurship at the University of Denver and founded the nonprofit Privacy Foundation. He died in September 2002. Laurence Shames, formerly the Ethics columnist for Esquire, is a critically acclaimed novelist and essayist, and was the ghostwriter of the New York Times bestseller Boss of Bosses. He lives in Ojai, California. Jacket design by Christopher Rhoads Cover photographs courtesy of Laura Barton
From the Back Cover
Look, I don't kid myself that my little death is any more important than those of the five or six billion people who've died before me. And I don't pretend to any special wisdom about what's happening. But that's the whole point, isn't it? I'm just one more person dying, trying to make sense of what I'm going through. . . .
Praise for Not Fade Away
"This is a wise, funny, and intensely true book--a generous gift from an amazing guy to those of us who are so busy getting through life that we sometimes forget why we're living. Sooner or later, we'll all make the journey Peter Barton took; now, thanks to him, it doesn't look so scary."
--Dave Barry
"A little masterpiece. . . a book to be read by everyone. . . . [It] may be the most honest book I have ever read. . . . Some of [the] phrases and sentences literally took my breath away. . . . [Not Fade Away] lit up my own mind and spirit--dare I include soul?--to consider my own life and purposes."
--Jim Lehrer
"You couldn't know Peter Barton and not know he would face dying in the most adventurous and original way. . . . This is a book full of insight and comfort, wisdom and hope."
--Barry Diller
About the Author
Peter Barton was a founder and CEO of Liberty Media and a passionate advocate for such innovative programming as the Discovery Channel, Fox Sports Net, Black Entertainment Television, and QVC. After leaving Liberty in 1997, he devoted himself to philanthropy and education. He taught a graduate business course in entrepreneurship at the University of Denver and founded the nonprofit Privacy Foundation. He died in September 2002.
Laurence Shames, formerly the Ethics columnist for Esquire, is a critically acclaimed novelist and essayist, and was the ghostwriter of the New York Times bestseller Boss of Bosses. He lives in Ojai, California.
Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived FROM THE PUBLISHER
Some people are born to lead and destined to teach--not by precept, but by the example of living life to the fullest. Peter Barton was that kind of person.
He protested at Columbia University in the 1960s, played soul music at Harlem's Apollo Theater, spent time as a ski bum and a craps dealer, and eventually emerged from Harvard Business School to become a central figure in the creation of cable television. In the prime of his life, happily married and the father of three young children, Peter came face to face with the biggest challenge in a life filled with risk-taking and direction-changing. Diagnosed with cancer, he began a journey both frightening and appalling, yet also full of wonder and discovery.
Not Fade Away recreates that journey in the intimate and alternating voices of Peter and of Laurence Shames--two men close in age yet who've chosen vastly different lives. Together, in a spirit of deepening friendship, they relive the high points of years that embodied the hopes and strivings of an entire generation. With courage, candor, and even humor, they search for meaning in Peter's unflinching confrontation with mortality.
In life, Peter was an overachieving Everyman, a vibrant spirit who showed his peers just how much is possible. In his dying, similarly, he redefines the quietly heroic tasks of seeking clarity in the midst of pain and loss; of breaking through to a highly personal, secular faith; and of achieving peace at last.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
"I'm hardly the first person to notice that there is only the present, constantly," writes Barton in this extraordinary memoir. "The present moment is lived, and relieved; written, and rewritten. Every previous version still inhabits it." What gives this insight and the many others that follow uncommon power is the ever present fact that Barton, a pioneering entrepreneur in the cable television industry, was dying of stomach cancer as he wrote them. Alternating chapters with mystery writer Shames (The Naked Detective), Barton, who died in September, 2002, at 51, offers us-and his wife and three children-his final rewrite of a life filled with the optimism and idealism of his generation. Barton tells us how it feels to die while the party is still raging, offering us glimpses of a life that packed in everything from being a professional ski bum to working as an aide to New York State governor Hugh Carey to huge success as a visionary businessman (Barton helped found MTV, among other achievements). Readers will be knocked out by his honesty and his utter lack of self-pity or sentimentality. The "gift" of terminal cancer, according to Barton, is that "it doesn't kill you all at once. It gives you time to set your house in order.... It gives you time to think, to sum things up." Setting his house in order included taking his family for a balloon ride at dawn. Summing up what matters, he reminds us that it is the large and small moments of pleasure and love, those very present moments, that redeem us in the end. This is a very beautiful book about how to live. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Readers familiar with Liberty Media (the Discovery Channel, QVC, Encore, etc.) may know Barton as one of its founders and its CEO. Baby boomer Barton (1951-2002) appeared to have it all until he was diagnosed with gastrointestinal cancer at age 51. Here, joined by Shames (formerly an ethics columnist for Esquire and Barton's friend), he discusses his life and his coming to terms with his impending, painful, and inevitable death after having lived as an overachiever in the "arrogance of health." Only an extraordinary human being could have written many of the lines in this book, e.g., "My disease has been good for me....It has made me more accepting, gentler....I'm growing unafraid." The facts of Barton's life-how a talented young man founded a multibillion-dollar media empire and retired early-are certainly interesting, but the book is more an attempt to let Barton's family and friends know what he thought and what he valued. He wanted this book to energize young people to "get excited, get hyper, about their possibilities"-in a word, to give hope. The unusual writing style makes it a pleasure to read, and despite the subject matter, there is no sentimentality here, just lots of insights. Recommended especially for public libraries.-James Swanton, Harlem Hosp. Lib., New York Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Dying from stomach cancer at 51, the late media entrepreneur Barton looked back over his hungry, high-speed life to tender some personal truths. There is a powerful disconnect in these pages between the studied calm of Bartonﾽs closing months and his earlier life as an admittedly outsized alpha male, a striver and overachiever. "Iﾽm just trying to give a candid report on what Iﾽve experienced and continue to experience, to map the progress toward my own little death. I donﾽt pretend itﾽs been tidy," he says, and yet it is a fairly tidy summation. (Though Shames [The Naked Detective, 2000, etc.] must have helped Barton compose his thoughts, his presence is invisible except for short, eliding chapters. He takes no credit except to place his name first in the author order.) Bartonﾽs final job was with Liberty Media, a company that shaped the cable television landscape. He grew into a rich man, but before all the money there was a life that fit snuggly into the zeitgeist of the ﾽ60s: ski bum, card dealer, musician, political forays, and also being son to a father who died young, alerting Barton to his own potentially short lifespan. A prickly adolescent, he learned to manage the energy, letting it "ripen into what I think of as creative irreverence." He pushed himself, and, in doing so, learned a few lessons that he wished to pass along, especially to his children: "Recognizing the difference between a dumb risk and a smart one; understanding when you need a change of direction, and having the guts to do it." Certainly his insights are subjective, not a few quite filmy, though others ring with common sense. As Shames remarks, "The overriding theme was always the idea of becoming ready. Readyto live; ready to die." "I canﾽt believe it all just stops." Barton died in September 2002, leaving behind this appreciable scrapbook of his life. Agent: Stuart Krichevsky
Art & Photography
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