Myth, Fan Culture, and the Popular Appeal of Liminality
in the Music of u2: A Love Story
by
Brian Johnston and Susan Mackey-Kallis
(Lexington Books, 2019)
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Now available in Paperback!
"Brian Johnston and Susan Mackey-Kallis' Myth, Fan Culture, and the Popular Appeal of Liminality in the Music of U2: A Love Story is much more than an academic study of the super-band U2 and its fan community. It is a deeply moving meditation on the complex character of love--one that deftly draws critical inspiration from psychoanalysis, medium theory, and media erotics to illuminate the ways that the music, at its best, stirs the soul, creates community, and calls on all of us to realize our better natures. Full of passion, pleasure, and insight, U2: A Love Story invites readers to fall in love with a band that has left an indelible mark on both rock music and its fans."
"Johnston and Mackey-Kallis deliver an original, compelling, and intimate analysis of U2 across the last four decades. An essential book for scholars of music, mythology, politics, and popular culture."
"Reading Johnston and Mackey-Kallis' Myth, Fan Culture, and the Popular Appeal of Liminality in the Music of U2: A Love Story is an uplifting experience. Building on work in fan culture studies, Johnston and Mackey-Kallis offer a compelling account of U2's musical biography while intertwining autoethnographic insights drawn from their experiences as long-time fans of the band. The result is a powerful love story, both of fans' love for the artists who move them and of a band whose entire musical career has illustrated the inseparable and liminal nature of three types of love (eros, agape, and amor). Together, the authors vividly illustrate how U2 and their fans travel together on a quest for 'unity and social justice in the world'."