Reddit reviews No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan

Many of the Dylan bios delve into this period. None are definitive, and all have their fair share of faults; but if you're inclined, I'd say the best of the bunch are probably Howard Sounes' Down the Highway, Clinton Heylin's Behind the Shades, and Robert Shelton's No Direction Home. The Shelton book leans pretty heavy on the '60s, though; for later info, I'd stick with one of the other two.

If, however, you'd rather not go down that route, I will happily do what I can to summarize the relevant contents.

Here goes:

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The Dylans' marriage had been wobbly for a while, but it ran off the rails during the second leg of the RTR. Bob was having, as you might say, lots of strange affairs—one, for instance, with a woman he had invited into his entourage to teach him how to tightrope walk. This and God knows what else led to Bob & Sara having several public arguments during this time, which ultimately ended with her leaving the tour for good and him henceforth tearing into "Idiot Wind" like never before.

Back in California, the two had previously put plans in place to construct their fantasy home along the water, in Point Dume. They each spent a sizable chunk of '76 overseeing the construction of this mega-mansion, bickering about details and alterations along the way.

Sara later testified that the final straw in their relationship occurred in February '77, when she came down to breakfast one day to find Bob sitting at the table with their children, and a woman she'd never seen before named Malka. She claimed a dispute then ensued, in which Bob struck her in the face and told her to leave. (Bear in mind, the details of this have never been independently verified; this is just what Sara said at the time.) What we know for sure is that Sara moved out, hired the most famous divorce lawyer in the country—Marvin M. Mitchelson, the man who coined the term "palimony"—and filed for divorce at the beginning of March.

Upon receiving the news, Bob shacked up with Faridi McFree, who had been an "art therapist" and nanny of sorts for his kids. He and McFree subsequently sojourned for the summer to Dylan's farm in Minnesota, which is where he wrote most if not all of "Street-Legal." It was also here that Bob learned of the death of Elvis Presley, a development which affected him profoundly.

>McFree: "I was with him the night Presley died ... He really took it very bad. He didn't speak for a couple of days. He was really grieving."

>Dylan (to Robert Shelton): "I broke down [after Elvis died]. One of the very few times. I went over my whole life. I went over my whole childhood. I didn't talk to anyone for a week ... If it wasn't for Elvis and Hank Williams, I couldn't be doing what I do today."

The divorce proceedings got ugly and, by all accounts, super expensive—the settlement records are sealed, but Sara supposedly walked away with tens of millions (Sounes says $36 million), plus a share of royalties going forward. Bob got to keep the new house.

The custody fight got even uglier. Sara petitioned the court for permission to move with the children to Hawaii; Bob responded by asking to be granted sole custody. A protracted battle ensued, which Bob eventually lost. To ensure he ended up with at least partial custody (i.e., visitation rights), he dumped McFree, who by this time Sara actively despised and didn't want around the kids.

Throughout this period, Bob was working with Howard Alk assembling "Renaldo & Clara." Alk lived in a guesthouse on Dylan's estate; they worked during the days in an editing suite Bob had set up in his garage. You can imagine what this experience must have been like, considering how much of the footage they were combing through featured his now ex-wife.

Alk, it sadly must be said, was an incorrigible drug addict—he ended up committing suicide via heroin overdose in Dylan's Santa Monica studio in 1982—and it's been alleged that cocaine played a more than ample role throughout the editing process. The film, of course, both flopped and received scathing reviews, which one would imagine did wonders for neither Bob's psyche nor his pocketbook.

Which brings us to "World Tour '78," the impetus for which was purely economic. As Bob told the Los Angeles Times: "I had a couple of bad years. I put a lot of money into the movie, built a big house ... and it costs a lot to get divorced in California."

He signed with Jerry Weintraub, after going to see a Neil Diamond concert in Las Vegas and being impressed with the theatrics. Weintraub, who managed Diamond, is the person who put together Dylan's massive tour in '78, which ended up grossing over $20 million.

The tour began in Japan. There's a great story—it's in the Sounes book—that while he was in California preparing for rehearsals, Bob received a telegram from the Japanese promoters essentially stipulating which songs they expected him to perform. Since Bob wasn't then in a financial position to refuse such a request, he sent a guitar technician down to a bookstore to buy his first published collection of lyrics, "Writings and Drawings," so that he could reacquaint himself with his back catalogue.

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Anyway, that's most of it. Suffice it to say, I think losing your wife, your kids (at least in part), and a shitload of dough in short succession would probably stress just about anyone out. Plus, you know, the drugs and booze and all the other vices that a newly-single world-famous celebrity is wont to partake in....probably didn't do Dylan a lot of good in the long run. Although who am I to judge?

Hope that helps.