For the first time in his own words, the legendary musical genius of The Beach Boys reflects on his tumultuous life and astonishing 21st-century comeback to live performance and renewed creativity. Brian Wilson was the driving creative force behind The Beach Boys, a band that defined an era and charted nine consecutive gold albums and hit after unstoppable hit. But he was derailed in the 1970s by mental illness, drug use, and the shifting fortunes of the band he'd helped to create. Wilson relates his life with a level of emotional honesty that has eluded authors of scores of previous works on Brian and The Beach Boys.