Catch A Wave

Peter Ames Carlin's "Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson," with strong reviews in the Globe, New York Times Book Review and Entertainment Weekly, has arrived in bookstores.

Several others have tried to get Wilson's story right, but those books have either been too dry or too consumed by the dirt that's driven America's most dysfunctional musical family.

Carlin didn't let his access - and he got oodles of it - turn his book into a fanzine. It's the definitive story of a rock icon worth understanding.

Here's a photo Carlin sent along from Wilson's show in Portland, Oregon last summer.