Cover Reveal: Chrissie Hynde’s Memoir (Exclusive)

Take a first look at the cover of Pretenders’ lead singer Chrissie Hynde’s forthcoming memoir, revealed here for the first time. 

Reckless: My Life as a Pretender will be published simultaneously in the U.S. and abroad on Sept. 8 by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House.

Singer-songwriter Hynde will take readers through her life, from her 1950s childhood in Akron, Ohio to her college days at Kent State (including being on campus during the May 4, 1970 shooting of students by the National Guard)  to her move to London in the early 1970s, where she worked at Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s clothing store, Sex, and got to know Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious.

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In 1978 she formed the Pretenders with James Honeyman-Scott, Peter Farndon and Martin Chambers. Their self-titled debut album is considered one of the best of all time (VH1 had it as No. 52 on its list of best albums.) Hynde has also preformed as a solo artist. Her most recent album, Stockholm, came out in June 2014.

Hynde has two daughters, one with Kinks frontman Ray Davies and another with Simple Minds’ Jim Kerr, who she was married to from 1984-1990.

When the project was first announced, Hynde said, “I’m approaching writing this memoir much the same way as I would an album. I hope it makes you want to dance, have fun, dig out some old records and maybe even root through your closet and dust off your guitar. If it makes you cry, I can only say, in the words of Willie Nelson, ‘YOU were always on my mind.’ ”

Doubleday editor Gerry Howard added, “Ever since becoming besotted by the first Pretenders album in 1980, Chrissie Hynde has always been my idea of what a rock star should be — incredibly talented and magnetic and charismatic and unapologetically herself in all circumstances.”

See a larger version of the cover below.