A man shattered by his political demise

Back in the 1970s, a few years after Bob Dylan released Blood on the Tracks, he was being interviewed about how it was such an outstanding album. The album was written as Dylan’s marriage was coming to an end, a time of great trauma for him. Yet the interviewer saw only the musical accomplishment. Dylan’s reply was typical. “How can you enjoy so much pain,” he said.

The same question began buzzing around my head as I waded through Alan Shatter’s recently released memoir, Frenzy And Betrayal — The Anatomy Of A Political Assassination.