I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp: An Autobiography by Richard Hell (book review)

Review by Jessie Lynn

Richard Hell - founding member of Television, former member of The Heartbreakers (Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakers, not Tom Petty’s), former frontman for The Voidoids, and writer - has published his memoir.

I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp is the story of his early life.

He dreams of escape from suburban Kentucky, gets in trouble at school, then goes to boarding school in Delaware, where he meets Tom Verlaine (who he would later found Television with), then drops out and goes to New York City, where he makes small-run lit mags and eventually gets into music.  It’s impossible not to compare this book to Just Kids - Patti Smith’s memoir, which was published in 2010.

The comparisons between the two are easy to draw, because they both write about their childhoods and their eventual moves to NYC (where they were both early members of the burgeoning punk scene), and both their stories hinge on an intense friendship /creative partnership - Hell’s with Tom Verlaine, Smith’s with Robert Mapplethorpe.

It’s impossible not to draw the comparisons, and I like both, but I have to say, I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp is my favorite of the two.

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