The Only Girl

My Life and Times on the Masthead of Rolling Stone

By: Robin Green

Narrated by: Robin Green

Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

A raucous and vividly dishy memoir by the only woman writer on the masthead of Rolling Stone magazine in the early '70s.

In 1971, Robin Green had an interview with Jann Wenner at the offices Rolling Stone magazine. She had just moved to Berkeley, California, a city that promised "Good Vibes All-a Time". Those days, job applications asked just one question, "What are your sun, moon, and rising signs?" Green thought she was interviewing for a clerical job like the other girls in the office, a "real job". Instead, she was hired as a journalist.

With irreverent humor and remarkable nerve, Green spills stories of sparring with Dennis Hopper on a film junket in the desert, scandalizing fans of David Cassidy, and spending a legendary evening on a water bed in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s dorm room. In the '70s, Green was there as Hunter S. Thompson crafted Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and now, with a distinctly gonzo female voice, she reveals her side of that tumultuous time in America.

Brutally honest and bold, Green reveals what it was like to be the first woman granted entry into an iconic boys' club. Pulling back the curtain on Rolling Stone magazine in its prime, The Only Girl is a stunning tribute to a bygone era and a publication that defined a generation.

©2018 Robin Green (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Robin has written a frank, witty and loving memoir about growing up in the milieu of the '70s at Rolling Stone. Her honesty and insight brought all those times back, some of RS's wildest and wackiest early days." (Jann Wenner, co-founder and publisher of Rolling Stone)

"Only girl on the masthead? And in the room! And still standing! And with cojones! Green has written a straight-talking, utterly indiscrete, deliciously shocking story about being in the right place at the right time pretty much all the time." (Bill Buford, journalist and author of Among the Thugs and Heat)

"A funny, frank, powerful and ultimately moving memoir by an extraordinary writer who didn't merely roll with the Zeitgeist but remade it in her own image." (T.C. Boyle, author of The Harder They Come and The Terranauts)

Eye Opening Insight on Coming into One’s Own

I was catapulted into the time capsule of the sixties and seventies, when my own pubescent eyes were just barely aware of all the tumultuous times Green recalls. Bravely and boldly, she bares her innermost self, turning herself inside out, examining who she had been, and sharing the ride with us on how she became The Only Girl. Loved every delicious minute as she talks about those heady times before aids, about being free, yet her vulnerability peeks through the seemingly “right place in the right time” scenarios of her meteoric rise in the small world of the writers’ rooms. I didn’t want it to end. And I loved her almost deadpan delivery as she put her past under the microscope, her east coast accent sneaking in now and then. So many vignettes I want to replay, the almost vulgar moment she climbs off the erudite dude, the tender way she talks about her memories of the furniture in her mother’s room. Sad I missed seeing the photos that were surely part of the book, especially the photo that captured her youthful essence forever.

Self Indulgence at its best

Everything about this book was great. There writer’s voice was a little obnoxious. But it’s her life so she is good enough. She’s not a girl like me. She’s a little too too groovy. But ...SOPRANOS? And she’s deliciously vindictive in this passive aggressive way. Yeah very Rock and Roll.