Alex Pappademas is the author of Keanu Reeves: Most Triumphant—The Movies & Meaning of an Irrepressible Icon and the writer and host of the acclaimed podcast The Big Hit Show. His work has also appeared in GQ, the New York Times, and Grantland.
Joan LeMay is an artist based in London and New York City (although the paintings for this book were created in Portland). Her work appears in multiple publications and books and has been shown in museums, galleries, and public spaces internationally.
Weird and wondrous...Quantum Criminals fairly drips with
information…and I have drunk it in eagerly...The writing in Quantum
Criminals is often arresting and always engaging pop-music
journalism...Quantum Criminals is a reminder that one can be
massively fulfilled by language one doesn’t fully comprehend.
*New York Times*
Quantum Criminals is one of the sharpest, funniest, and best books
ever about any rock artist.
*Rolling Stone*
Pappademas offers a lively series of ruminations about individual
songs, loosely pegged to the characters who populate those songs
and who are rendered in playfully detailed and colorful portraits
by LeMay. The result is both a celebration and an artifact of the
current Steely Dan moment...In sharp and funny chapters, Pappademas
riffs on [Steely Dan's] cast of characters in ways that capture the
band’s cultural context and musical debts.
*The Atlantic*
[Quantum Criminals] uncovers the vast constellation of lyrical
references, artistic influences and social and political contexts
surrounding the band and its music.
*NPR Music*
Wry, playful but deeply incisive...Fagen, Becker...and Pappademas
are kindred spirits, smartass, sharp-eyed observers of life’s El
Supremos—a description that suits other Dan fans as well. Quantum
Criminals is like a secret handshake between two covers. The best
part is that it illuminates details the rest of us may have glossed
over for years.
*Los Angeles Times*
In one fell swoop, [Quantum Criminals] has become the essential
Steely Dan book. And you should absolutely be reading it right
now...Pappademas and LeMay leave no stones unturned in their quest
to unlock every mythological quadrant of Steely Dan’s immense,
decades-long artistic conceptions.
*Paste*
A whimsical plunge into one of America’s most unconventional rock
bands...[A] delicious deep dive into the many protagonists in the
'Steely Daniverse'...LeMay’s vibrant paintings—more than 100 of
which are included in the book—provide yet another kaleidoscopic
lens through which to consider the duo’s wild imaginations. Any
major dude will tell you that this is a solid and highly
entertaining take on Fagen and Becker’s 'platonic love story.'
*Kirkus*
[An] engaging and illuminating way to tell the band's
history...Quantum Criminals is undoubtedly the best thing I’ve ever
read about this endearingly strange and endlessly fascinating
band.
*The Forward*
An engrossing series of essays that innovatively chart the
cosmology of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s musical universe…[A]
terrific and irresistible book.
*Talkhouse*
Remarkable...we finally have a book about Steely Dan in which the
writing and art fully measure up to the sophistication and beauty
of Becker and Fagen’s music...Pappademas’s incisive, elegant prose
poetry pairs perfectly with LeMay’s colorful hand-painted portraits
that offer humorous and empathetic glimpses of the Dan’s menagerie
of luckless pedestrians.
*Expanding Dan*
Wonderfully weird and insightful...the Steeliest of all the Steely
Dan books out there. And it’s wholly refreshing...There have been a
number of fine books on Steely Dan, but Quantum Criminals is the
one whose spirit, vivacity, and off-kilterness matches its subjects
and their body of work.
*Houston Press*
Steely Dan fans should love this book. And if you’re not a fan of
that non-band band, but love good writing about rock music, Quantum
Criminals is still worth reading.
*Milwaukee Shepherd Express*
These song-based essays are part band biography, trenchant culture
criticism, poignant ‘70s history, and psychedelic tone poems. Like
Steely Dan’s tunes, they toe the line between an unbridled
reverence for the music and esoteric sensibilities. I read it in a
day and came out with an even deeper respect for their catalog.
*No Expectations*
This is the finest piece of rock journalism that I have read in a
long time.
*Religion News Service*
Alex Pappademas reveals the stories behind many of [Steely Dan's]
songs and, in the process, gives us a book that shows what the
right kind of obsession leads to—joyful, contagious passion.
Featuring terrific illustrations by Joan LeMay, this is a
fascinating, fun, and deep dive into the stories behind the music
and the men who created it...After you read this book, you’ll never
be able to forget the genius of these two writers.
*Air Mail*
For those who are anywhere from casual listeners to hardcore Dan
Fans, this book is an unceasing delight from cover to
cover…Engrossing, well-written, with vivid, whimsical
illustrations, Quantum Criminals is the literary equivalent of a
Steely Dan album: vibrant, a little strange, and nearly
perfect.
*Spectrum Culture*
Writer Alex Pappademas and painter Joan Lemay...go beyond
explanation to produce the definitive Danomicon with this
expansively argued and vibrantly illustrated survey of the songs,
lyrics and characters populating the whole Steely Dan catalog.
*Tertulia*
Whether you count the current Danaissance as something entirely new
or another turn in a recurring cycle, and even if you’re among
those who find the band too weird or jazzy, it’s undeniable the Dan
endures. Quantum Criminals is an entertaining and insightful
account of why.
*The Washington Free Beacon*
The book is as smooth and intriguing as Gaucho, a combination of
sophisticated thinking, clear language, and a calm view of the dark
interior of this band. All of it is told through a series of
connected biographies that are based on each song that the band
recorded . . . and that give the musicians involved, the cultural
views accumulated, and Pappademas’s own journey, significant roles
in what is a great and complex story. The book will be terrifically
satisfying to any and all Dan fans in the way that having one’s own
experiences and perceptions acknowledged and validated is, but it
goes far beyond hagiography.
*The Brooklyn Rail*
The new book, Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and other
Sole Survivors From the Songs of Steely Dan, is the delightful
result of an author not only understanding their subject, but
emotionally bonding with it. In this case, it’s the two co-authors,
Alex Pappademas (who writes the words) and Joan LeMay (who paints
the pictures). . . Quantum Criminals understands the paradoxical
nature of Steely Dan, and the book embraces that chaos. It’s not a
paean to “great men” of classic rock, nor is it a fan service love
letter. But it is most definitely the right book about the correct
band.
*The Daily Beast*
There have been a number of fine books on Steely Dan, but Quantum
Criminals is the one whose spirit, vivacity, and off-kilterness
matches its subjects and their body of work.
*Classic Rock Bob*
[An] ultra-cool hybrid of music criticism and pop art...For older
fans, who remember when 'Rikki Don't Lose That Number' owned the
airwaves in spring 1974, Quantum Criminals is like a tour
guide with a music geek friend whose fresh outlook about songs
you've heard hundreds of times enables you to experience elements
of their greatness for the first time.
*New Hampshire Union Leader*
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