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Rat Girl by Hersh, Kristin
In 1985, Kristin Hersh was just starting to find her place in theworld. After leaving home at the age of fifteen, the precocious child of unconventional hippies had enrolled in college while her band,Throwing Muses, was getting off the ground amid rumors of a major label deal. Then everything she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and found herself in an emotional tailspin; she started medication, but then discovered she was pregnant. An intensely personal and moving account of that pivotal year, Rat Girl is sure to be greeted eagerly by Hersh’s many fans.
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First published August 31, 2010
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June 17, 2015
i'm so fucking excited. i gave the quote that opens this book so i'm allowed to name drop that she's my awesome mother in law, right?
October 25, 2010
In 1984 was supposed to go see Duran Duran play on the Seven and The Ragged Tiger tour with a group of my friends, but at the last minute my parents wouldn't let me go. So the first rock show I went to without parental supervision was in high school in 1989. I was seventeen and the club was eighteen and over only. I was a hopelessly good kid that didn't care about drinking (and never owned a fake ID), but I altered my driver’s license so that it looked like I was a year older just so I could see Throwing Muses play live.
I had become obsessed with them after hearing a track on the Lonely Is An Eyesore compilation put out by 4AD records. This weird jangly "alternative" rock with obtuse lyrics drilled into my head and I played their records endlessly and memorized and sang the words I didn't understand, but felt moved by nonetheless.
I went by myself and was scared to talk to the other people in the club, who I was certain would know I was underage. Still I made my way to the front of the stage and was transfixed by this spooky singer who apologized for the fact that she stared into the distance throughout her set. I managed to grab the set list and then waited outside watching the band load out and wishing I had the guts to go up to talk to them. If I had, perhaps I would've gotten a glimpse of the postscript to the amazing year described in lead singer Kristin Hersh's new memoir Rat Girl.
The book is a swirling, moving and deeply personal story of four seasons of dramatic transformation between 1985 and 1986. Hersh's beautifully told tale is unique and fantastic, yet should resonate deeply to anyone who lived through their confusing teenage years trying to make sense of a world that didn't seem made for them.
I tore through this gem of a book and can't recommend it enough. Even if you've never heard the music of Kristin or the Muses, you will enjoy this extraordinary, touching memoir. But if you are already a fan, this is necessary reading and throws the songs into such amazing dimension that you will never be able to listen to them the same way again.
I’m jealous of the folks who will be discovering her amazing music for the first time through this book (and I hope there will be many), but I am happy to say “Throwing Muses” whenever I’m asked about the first show I went to by myself.
Be sure to get this book soon as readers in the first year of publication are given access to live recordings of the songs mentioned throughout.
Also be sure to check out Kristin’s recent solo music and new Throwing Muses recordings, much of which is available for free/pay-what-you-like here: http://kristinhersh.cashmusic.org/
p.s. Kristin is offering to talk to book clubs that choose to read Rat Girl. My book club had her call in and it was an amazing experience. She is such a wonderfully kind and giving artist and everyone was moved by the additional perspective she gave us on the book and her life. If you're interested you can get in touch with her through Twitter: @KristinHersh
I had become obsessed with them after hearing a track on the Lonely Is An Eyesore compilation put out by 4AD records. This weird jangly "alternative" rock with obtuse lyrics drilled into my head and I played their records endlessly and memorized and sang the words I didn't understand, but felt moved by nonetheless.
I went by myself and was scared to talk to the other people in the club, who I was certain would know I was underage. Still I made my way to the front of the stage and was transfixed by this spooky singer who apologized for the fact that she stared into the distance throughout her set. I managed to grab the set list and then waited outside watching the band load out and wishing I had the guts to go up to talk to them. If I had, perhaps I would've gotten a glimpse of the postscript to the amazing year described in lead singer Kristin Hersh's new memoir Rat Girl.
The book is a swirling, moving and deeply personal story of four seasons of dramatic transformation between 1985 and 1986. Hersh's beautifully told tale is unique and fantastic, yet should resonate deeply to anyone who lived through their confusing teenage years trying to make sense of a world that didn't seem made for them.
I tore through this gem of a book and can't recommend it enough. Even if you've never heard the music of Kristin or the Muses, you will enjoy this extraordinary, touching memoir. But if you are already a fan, this is necessary reading and throws the songs into such amazing dimension that you will never be able to listen to them the same way again.
I’m jealous of the folks who will be discovering her amazing music for the first time through this book (and I hope there will be many), but I am happy to say “Throwing Muses” whenever I’m asked about the first show I went to by myself.
Be sure to get this book soon as readers in the first year of publication are given access to live recordings of the songs mentioned throughout.
Also be sure to check out Kristin’s recent solo music and new Throwing Muses recordings, much of which is available for free/pay-what-you-like here: http://kristinhersh.cashmusic.org/
p.s. Kristin is offering to talk to book clubs that choose to read Rat Girl. My book club had her call in and it was an amazing experience. She is such a wonderfully kind and giving artist and everyone was moved by the additional perspective she gave us on the book and her life. If you're interested you can get in touch with her through Twitter: @KristinHersh
August 7, 2017
En 1985 Kristin Hersh tiene 19 años y un grupo de música prometedor: Throwing Muses. El mismo año, le diagnostican trastorno bipolar y se queda embarazada. Este libro está basado en los diarios que escribió en ese momento, aunque como ella misma dice, esa chica ya no existe. Aún así, aquí está su historia: íntima, divertida, honesta y caótica.
"¿Sabes lo que es una ecografía? Es ver el sonido. Así que no soy la única que lo hace".
"¿Sabes lo que es una ecografía? Es ver el sonido. Así que no soy la única que lo hace".
October 25, 2010
In Which Kristen Hersh Calls Our Book Club and is Dark and Blue and Sweet:
I'd never heard of Kristin Hersh, or her art rock band,Throwing Muses, which she formed at age 14. I know, I know, I'm about as hip as a walker. My Book and Cake Club picked her memoir, Rat Girl as our October read. (BTW, if you don't belong to a book club where everyone brings cake, you're in the wrong book club.) Hersh's email address is printed in the back of her book, so Noah Scalin emailed and asked her if she'd like to "attend." Noah has been a fan for a long time; he saw her band play at a club in Richmond when he was too young to be there. I imagine that struck a chord (no pun intended) with Kristin, who for six years was too young herself to be in the clubs she played. She answered Noah right away and said sure. We met on Oct. 24, and Kristin Hersh participated via speakerphone.
I love people who love to laugh, and Kristin loves to laugh. Notoriously shy, she commented on her recent experiences at "literary events," where people often ask her very personal questions. "I go with it," she said, but as she says in the introduction, "I'm not interested in self-expression—I don’t want people to listen to my songs so that they’ll care about me.” And I don't think she wrote this book so people would care about her, either. Rather, she has shared with bone white honesty what is was like to be 18, freakishly talented and walking a line between sanity and stability, adventure and responsibility, ambition and integrity, music and motherhood.
Initially approached by a ghost writer who apparently felt comfortable enough to suggest that he "move in" as part of his research, Kristin stopped returning his calls and decided to write her story herself, using her 1985 diary as the starting point. "I kept a diary because someone told me I should," she said. "It was like homework to me." The book includes passages from her diary as well song lyrics which inform the memoir, and offer glimpses into her creative process.
What surprised me about his memoir is how "sweet" it is. "I wanted it to be sweet," Kristin said. Indeed, "dark and blue and sweet" is a recurring theme, and listening to her talk about Betty Hutton, with whom she had a remarkable college friendship in the mid-80s, her voice takes on those colors. "I feel a little guilty about Betty," she says of the years they were not in touch. (For those of you who don't know, Hutton was a Hollywood star who hit her stride in the 60s, playing Annie Oakley in the MGM movie. Hutton was in her 60s when she attended Kristin's gigs, and gave advice on connecting with an audience.) Hersh paints other characters with equally heartfelt strokes: her parents, whom we might expect to be neglectful or oblivious are instead loving and sweet. Her therapist (Dr. SevenSyllables), whom we might expect to be detached or cluelessly cerebral, is instead empathetic and hip. He "gets" her, and perhaps more importantly, guides her through a pregnancy without drugs. Hersh describes no petty behavior among her band members, although I'm sure there must have been some. These things don't interest Kristen, even as they were undoubtedly of interest to her editor at Penguin.
"She wrote in the margins, EXPLAIN! in big red letters. But I didn't want to write about the boring stuff. I wanted to write about the stuff that interested me." For four years, she wrote from 2:00 am until dawn (insomnia seemed another creative stimulant), then rewrote, erased it all, and rewrote again. "I hate it when people ask me 'what are you working on next?' It took me four years to write this one!"
Following a car crash which left her crumpled on the side of a road, Hersh developed a condition that sounds like synesthesia. As she described it: "I would hear ambient noise as music which sounded like me playing next door." Imagine the everyday background noise in your life arranging itself into the building blocks of songs, sometimes wild or twisted up, other times electrified and flitchy. And that's her music: surprising, haunting, sometimes loud, always compelling.
She also suffers from bi-polar disorder. It's onset, at 18, helped bring about a sort of "Art as Danger" lifestyle, in which Hersh found herself homeless, self-destructive and so creatively alive she almost combusted. Add to this mix an unplanned pregnancy, and you might expect a boiling cauldron of sadness and regret. But this memoir doesn't go where you think it will, doesn't ask what you expect it to answer. Neither depressing or triumphant, it is a glimpse into one woman's creative process by way of the most remarkable year in her life (arguably) as recorded in her diary and music. The memoir doesn't try to make a statement; Hersh sees only concerned with making music. And she puts her money where her mouth is: she found the nonprofit Coalition of Artists and Stakeholders (www.cash-music.com) in which she records and releases music without the aid of a record company. She is entirely listener-funded and makes her music available, free of charge and free to be shared, via CreativeCommons.org.You can download acoustic songs that complement her memoir at www.kristenhersh.com/seasonsessions.
The book is impressionistic. Hersh leaves out as much as she includes, which fascinated me. She never tells us who the father of her child is, for instance (indeed she makes little reference to having sex at all), and I feltl that the question was beside the point. But we wanted to ask, more out of a sense of connection than curiosity. But we didn't ask, and she didn't offer. Rat Girl is not about romance, after all. It is about passion. "Passion for sound, reptiles, old ladies, guitars, a car, water, weather, friends, colors, chords, children, a band, fish, light and shadow.”
Passion that is dark and blue and sweet.
I'd never heard of Kristin Hersh, or her art rock band,Throwing Muses, which she formed at age 14. I know, I know, I'm about as hip as a walker. My Book and Cake Club picked her memoir, Rat Girl as our October read. (BTW, if you don't belong to a book club where everyone brings cake, you're in the wrong book club.) Hersh's email address is printed in the back of her book, so Noah Scalin emailed and asked her if she'd like to "attend." Noah has been a fan for a long time; he saw her band play at a club in Richmond when he was too young to be there. I imagine that struck a chord (no pun intended) with Kristin, who for six years was too young herself to be in the clubs she played. She answered Noah right away and said sure. We met on Oct. 24, and Kristin Hersh participated via speakerphone.
I love people who love to laugh, and Kristin loves to laugh. Notoriously shy, she commented on her recent experiences at "literary events," where people often ask her very personal questions. "I go with it," she said, but as she says in the introduction, "I'm not interested in self-expression—I don’t want people to listen to my songs so that they’ll care about me.” And I don't think she wrote this book so people would care about her, either. Rather, she has shared with bone white honesty what is was like to be 18, freakishly talented and walking a line between sanity and stability, adventure and responsibility, ambition and integrity, music and motherhood.
Initially approached by a ghost writer who apparently felt comfortable enough to suggest that he "move in" as part of his research, Kristin stopped returning his calls and decided to write her story herself, using her 1985 diary as the starting point. "I kept a diary because someone told me I should," she said. "It was like homework to me." The book includes passages from her diary as well song lyrics which inform the memoir, and offer glimpses into her creative process.
What surprised me about his memoir is how "sweet" it is. "I wanted it to be sweet," Kristin said. Indeed, "dark and blue and sweet" is a recurring theme, and listening to her talk about Betty Hutton, with whom she had a remarkable college friendship in the mid-80s, her voice takes on those colors. "I feel a little guilty about Betty," she says of the years they were not in touch. (For those of you who don't know, Hutton was a Hollywood star who hit her stride in the 60s, playing Annie Oakley in the MGM movie. Hutton was in her 60s when she attended Kristin's gigs, and gave advice on connecting with an audience.) Hersh paints other characters with equally heartfelt strokes: her parents, whom we might expect to be neglectful or oblivious are instead loving and sweet. Her therapist (Dr. SevenSyllables), whom we might expect to be detached or cluelessly cerebral, is instead empathetic and hip. He "gets" her, and perhaps more importantly, guides her through a pregnancy without drugs. Hersh describes no petty behavior among her band members, although I'm sure there must have been some. These things don't interest Kristen, even as they were undoubtedly of interest to her editor at Penguin.
"She wrote in the margins, EXPLAIN! in big red letters. But I didn't want to write about the boring stuff. I wanted to write about the stuff that interested me." For four years, she wrote from 2:00 am until dawn (insomnia seemed another creative stimulant), then rewrote, erased it all, and rewrote again. "I hate it when people ask me 'what are you working on next?' It took me four years to write this one!"
Following a car crash which left her crumpled on the side of a road, Hersh developed a condition that sounds like synesthesia. As she described it: "I would hear ambient noise as music which sounded like me playing next door." Imagine the everyday background noise in your life arranging itself into the building blocks of songs, sometimes wild or twisted up, other times electrified and flitchy. And that's her music: surprising, haunting, sometimes loud, always compelling.
She also suffers from bi-polar disorder. It's onset, at 18, helped bring about a sort of "Art as Danger" lifestyle, in which Hersh found herself homeless, self-destructive and so creatively alive she almost combusted. Add to this mix an unplanned pregnancy, and you might expect a boiling cauldron of sadness and regret. But this memoir doesn't go where you think it will, doesn't ask what you expect it to answer. Neither depressing or triumphant, it is a glimpse into one woman's creative process by way of the most remarkable year in her life (arguably) as recorded in her diary and music. The memoir doesn't try to make a statement; Hersh sees only concerned with making music. And she puts her money where her mouth is: she found the nonprofit Coalition of Artists and Stakeholders (www.cash-music.com) in which she records and releases music without the aid of a record company. She is entirely listener-funded and makes her music available, free of charge and free to be shared, via CreativeCommons.org.You can download acoustic songs that complement her memoir at www.kristenhersh.com/seasonsessions.
The book is impressionistic. Hersh leaves out as much as she includes, which fascinated me. She never tells us who the father of her child is, for instance (indeed she makes little reference to having sex at all), and I feltl that the question was beside the point. But we wanted to ask, more out of a sense of connection than curiosity. But we didn't ask, and she didn't offer. Rat Girl is not about romance, after all. It is about passion. "Passion for sound, reptiles, old ladies, guitars, a car, water, weather, friends, colors, chords, children, a band, fish, light and shadow.”
Passion that is dark and blue and sweet.
November 13, 2010
Maybe the best thing I can say about this book is that I really, really want to listen to a lot of Throwing Muses after reading it. There are a few songs by the band that I like - particularly "Shimmer" - and I also really like Kristin Hersh's solo stuff, but knowing more about Hersh's creative process has made me listen to the songs in a whole new way.
While I was reading, it occurred to me that Hersh would make a great subject of an Oliver Sacks piece. Here we've got a woman who has had a head injury, who is bipolar AND who is a synesthete (which means, in her case, that her brain associates sounds with colors), and she takes all of these things and uses them to create some really beautiful music.
But the book is about more than just her creative process. She writes beautifully about what it's like to have a diagnosable mental illness, particularly what it feels like to think that everything that makes up YOU is really just a side effect of your brain's chemical malfunctions. She writes about being a young female musician in a time (mid-1980s) and a place (New England) and working in a genre of music (crazy-ass pop-alternative rock) when all of these things were not exactly embraced. She writes about becoming pregnant and choosing to keep the baby. She writes about her friendship with an aging Hollywood actress, who is both like her and not like her in every way possible. It's a huge amount of material to cover in such a slim book but she does it.
What I liked best about the book, though, was Hersh's voice. She conveys her wide-eyed fascination with the world and all of the ugly-beauty inherent in everything it has to offer. Sometimes that kind of willful innocence can feel forced but I didn't get that from reading this book. Instead I just felt privileged that I got to spend a couple hundred pages inside the mind of such a gifted woman, and blessed that the world is capable of producing someone like her.
Recommended for anyone with an interesting in music, in memoir, in mental illness or in reading a lovely little book.
While I was reading, it occurred to me that Hersh would make a great subject of an Oliver Sacks piece. Here we've got a woman who has had a head injury, who is bipolar AND who is a synesthete (which means, in her case, that her brain associates sounds with colors), and she takes all of these things and uses them to create some really beautiful music.
But the book is about more than just her creative process. She writes beautifully about what it's like to have a diagnosable mental illness, particularly what it feels like to think that everything that makes up YOU is really just a side effect of your brain's chemical malfunctions. She writes about being a young female musician in a time (mid-1980s) and a place (New England) and working in a genre of music (crazy-ass pop-alternative rock) when all of these things were not exactly embraced. She writes about becoming pregnant and choosing to keep the baby. She writes about her friendship with an aging Hollywood actress, who is both like her and not like her in every way possible. It's a huge amount of material to cover in such a slim book but she does it.
What I liked best about the book, though, was Hersh's voice. She conveys her wide-eyed fascination with the world and all of the ugly-beauty inherent in everything it has to offer. Sometimes that kind of willful innocence can feel forced but I didn't get that from reading this book. Instead I just felt privileged that I got to spend a couple hundred pages inside the mind of such a gifted woman, and blessed that the world is capable of producing someone like her.
Recommended for anyone with an interesting in music, in memoir, in mental illness or in reading a lovely little book.
September 5, 2012
I’ve been trying for some time to write a decent review of Rat Girl: A Memoir, but not very successfully. As has been noted elsewhere on GR by myself and others, the books you really love are the hardest to review. Therefore, although I cannot do this quirky and delightful work justice, the following brief remarks will have to suffice.
As a rule, I am very stingy with my 5-star reviews. I usually reserve them for works of exceptional technical skill, genius-level mastery of the narrative form or language, or a book that simply changed my life through the way I look at things. But I’ve realized there is a 3rd category that I occasionally use, but rarely. This book gets 5 stars just because I just enjoyed the hell out of it. And any book about music is going to have at least a one-star running head-start anyway.
Before reading this, I had heard of, but had not heard the music of, the band Throwing Muses. So a few pages in, of course I got me over to YouTube and liked it very much. But I don’t believe one’s taste in music has any bearing on whether one will like this book. It can stand on its own.
Kristin Hersh notes in her Intro that the book is based on pages from her diary in 1985. “And interestingly,” she says, “it turns out to be a love story. One with no romance, only passion. Passion for sound, reptiles, old ladies, guitar, a car, water, weather, friends, colors, chords, children, a band, fish, light and shadow.” It does include all these things, plus: the nature of creativity, the impact of mental illness on said creativity, the inadvisability of being on drugs while pregnant, insomnia, the music industry as business rather than art, and more. If it doesn’t stray too far from the linear—it is fairly chronological – it is definitely not slavish to filling in all the gaps. And despite the sometimes ragged edges of the life described (divey clubs, grungy crash-pad style communal apartments, rats and roaches abounding), the voice is sweet and innocent. It’s hard not to love a narrator who believes the highest value is kindness. And the book is funny. Other reviews don’t generally mention this, but it was one of the things I enjoyed most.
Hersh recounts the year of living in derelict abandoned apartments with her bandmates, playing dumps where the fans have “neatly organized themselves into little factions”: the goth chicks, “lovely and soft-spoken,” the neo-hippies, “friendly, harmless . . . and they all dance like goofballs,” musicians of two types, “lost in a scene [or] lost in space,” and the junkies, “a ghostly group but livelier than you’d think.” When she and the Muses are not playing music, she hangs out between college classes with her best friend, aging movie star Betty Hutton. Betty specializes in giving advice on how to make it in show business. Kristin seems to think, in the early days of their friendship, that Betty was just some delusional old lady, then she finds out, no, wait, she really was a famous movie star back in the day.
Hersh suffers from a type of synesthesia and her songwriting is something that happens to her, rather than something she does. At the beginning she seems to believe that her tendency to be assaulted by all types of sensory overload that becomes a song is attributable to an accident where she was hit in the head. Later however, she is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and it’s not clear if one or the other or both are responsible for this talent.
When I turned away to look for my missing foot, the woman grabbed what used to be my face and turned it toward her. “You were hit by a car!” She spoke loudly and slowly, carefully articulating each word. “You’re going to be fine!”
Why is she talking to me like I’m foreign? I flashed on seventh grade health class, where they taught us what to do in case we ever came upon an accident. We learned to tie tourniquets and perform CPR, how to recognize the symptoms of shock and what happens to the person in the backseat if you keep a crowbar on the dash (hint: don’t).
They also taught us how to talk to the victim. You speak loudly and slowly, carefully articulating each word. You tell them what’s wrong and then you tell them they’re going to be fine: “You have a crowbar through the middle of your skull! You’re going to be fine!”
She describes herself as a “shy spaz” who is compelled to write and play this music that, before a double concussion, presented itself as “tapping me on the shoulder and singing into my ear.” Afterward “they slugged me in the jaw." But she admits “I’m head over heels in love with these evil songs. . . They’re arresting.” And she knows that “music is as close to religion as I’ll ever get. It’s a spiritually and biologically sound endeavor—it's healthy.”
One of the things that impressed me most was, this girl gets the point of music. In fact she explained something to me I have never clearly understood about myself, why I don’t listen to more music, loving it as I do: “The more you love music, the less music you love, ’cause you get picky – we take our religion seriously. Bad music is angrifying and good music is so painfully intense.” Why bother listening unless it’s great? And if it’s great, I tend to get distracted and absorbed in it and don’t get anything done. It’s never wallpaper, but something to be experienced to the fullest.
And this book made me begin wondering, for the first time, when other people get finished with a book they really love, do they close the cover and then give it a little hug before they put it down? Does anyone else do that? Or is it just me? Am I sharing too much?
I love this book.
As a rule, I am very stingy with my 5-star reviews. I usually reserve them for works of exceptional technical skill, genius-level mastery of the narrative form or language, or a book that simply changed my life through the way I look at things. But I’ve realized there is a 3rd category that I occasionally use, but rarely. This book gets 5 stars just because I just enjoyed the hell out of it. And any book about music is going to have at least a one-star running head-start anyway.
Before reading this, I had heard of, but had not heard the music of, the band Throwing Muses. So a few pages in, of course I got me over to YouTube and liked it very much. But I don’t believe one’s taste in music has any bearing on whether one will like this book. It can stand on its own.
Kristin Hersh notes in her Intro that the book is based on pages from her diary in 1985. “And interestingly,” she says, “it turns out to be a love story. One with no romance, only passion. Passion for sound, reptiles, old ladies, guitar, a car, water, weather, friends, colors, chords, children, a band, fish, light and shadow.” It does include all these things, plus: the nature of creativity, the impact of mental illness on said creativity, the inadvisability of being on drugs while pregnant, insomnia, the music industry as business rather than art, and more. If it doesn’t stray too far from the linear—it is fairly chronological – it is definitely not slavish to filling in all the gaps. And despite the sometimes ragged edges of the life described (divey clubs, grungy crash-pad style communal apartments, rats and roaches abounding), the voice is sweet and innocent. It’s hard not to love a narrator who believes the highest value is kindness. And the book is funny. Other reviews don’t generally mention this, but it was one of the things I enjoyed most.
Hersh recounts the year of living in derelict abandoned apartments with her bandmates, playing dumps where the fans have “neatly organized themselves into little factions”: the goth chicks, “lovely and soft-spoken,” the neo-hippies, “friendly, harmless . . . and they all dance like goofballs,” musicians of two types, “lost in a scene [or] lost in space,” and the junkies, “a ghostly group but livelier than you’d think.” When she and the Muses are not playing music, she hangs out between college classes with her best friend, aging movie star Betty Hutton. Betty specializes in giving advice on how to make it in show business. Kristin seems to think, in the early days of their friendship, that Betty was just some delusional old lady, then she finds out, no, wait, she really was a famous movie star back in the day.
Hersh suffers from a type of synesthesia and her songwriting is something that happens to her, rather than something she does. At the beginning she seems to believe that her tendency to be assaulted by all types of sensory overload that becomes a song is attributable to an accident where she was hit in the head. Later however, she is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and it’s not clear if one or the other or both are responsible for this talent.
When I turned away to look for my missing foot, the woman grabbed what used to be my face and turned it toward her. “You were hit by a car!” She spoke loudly and slowly, carefully articulating each word. “You’re going to be fine!”
Why is she talking to me like I’m foreign? I flashed on seventh grade health class, where they taught us what to do in case we ever came upon an accident. We learned to tie tourniquets and perform CPR, how to recognize the symptoms of shock and what happens to the person in the backseat if you keep a crowbar on the dash (hint: don’t).
They also taught us how to talk to the victim. You speak loudly and slowly, carefully articulating each word. You tell them what’s wrong and then you tell them they’re going to be fine: “You have a crowbar through the middle of your skull! You’re going to be fine!”
She describes herself as a “shy spaz” who is compelled to write and play this music that, before a double concussion, presented itself as “tapping me on the shoulder and singing into my ear.” Afterward “they slugged me in the jaw." But she admits “I’m head over heels in love with these evil songs. . . They’re arresting.” And she knows that “music is as close to religion as I’ll ever get. It’s a spiritually and biologically sound endeavor—it's healthy.”
One of the things that impressed me most was, this girl gets the point of music. In fact she explained something to me I have never clearly understood about myself, why I don’t listen to more music, loving it as I do: “The more you love music, the less music you love, ’cause you get picky – we take our religion seriously. Bad music is angrifying and good music is so painfully intense.” Why bother listening unless it’s great? And if it’s great, I tend to get distracted and absorbed in it and don’t get anything done. It’s never wallpaper, but something to be experienced to the fullest.
And this book made me begin wondering, for the first time, when other people get finished with a book they really love, do they close the cover and then give it a little hug before they put it down? Does anyone else do that? Or is it just me? Am I sharing too much?
I love this book.
January 22, 2016
Picked this up because I am working through Rolling Stone's list of the best rock memoirs. I like Throwing Muses and haven't read many female musicians memoirs so I went into this thinking it'd be a good book. Hmmmm. I read the intro where Kristin says this isn't a memoir per se but a novel based on her diary from when she was 19. Ok, well obviously every memoir written is not 100% true unless the person has been walking around their whole life tape recording conversations and has a photographic memory. But to start off the memoir by saying it's based on her life & not actually about her life - it was off putting.
I have read easily 2 dozen memoirs/biographies of musicians and Rat Girl is in a class of it's own. Which is good and bad. The good part was how she wrote about music and song writing and performing. I enjoyed learning the tidbit that she liked performing with her contacts off so she couldn't see the audience. And as soon as she wrote about the colors she saw when playing or listening to music, I was thrilled. I saw a documentary a while ago that had a segment on synesthesia - a neurological condition where the person sees colors in music or letters or numbers. I found it fascinating to read about how she perceived music. Just really amazing. She goes into great detail about the colors of music. She also wrote a lot about her music hallucinations. That she did not write songs but merely recorded what she saw & heard outside of herself. It was not a surprise to me when she was diagnosed as bi-polar.
I read Patty Duke's memoir earlier this year. Patty also is bi-polar and wrote about having it but in a very, very, very different way than Kristin. Maybe because Patty is twenty years older than Kristin & was writing a traditional memoir wherein a person looks back upon their life and talks about it from almost a third person perspective. Rat Girl is written in the first person here & now. Patty wrote she had manic episodes & summarized what she did & how people reacted to her. Kristin shows the manic episodes from within. There is no omniscent narrative looking at the mania from the outside. I found it hard to read about and relate to Kristin but also found it eye-opening and educational to get a perspective like that. At times I felt like I was reading parts of Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury or perhaps Burrough's Junkie or Joyce's Ulysses. Not easy reading but worthwhile reading.
What bugged me the most about the book was how vague & opaque it was. Her lack of detail drove anal-retentive OCD me insane. There was not an easily followed timeline. Things and people were introduced in the storyline but not explained and then suddenly dropped. I got no sense of Kristin's family or homelife or friends or lovers. The book was incredibly internal. Which may be her point? That her mental illness consumed her and made her incredibly self-focused to the detriment of relations with other people? Still, I wondered how did she pay for her apartment in Boston? She mentions at the beginning of the book how poorly the band was paid. When & why did she stop living with her parents? Why weren't they more concerned about her being homeless for a while? Or were they?
Most importantly, where the hell did that pregnancy come from??? Was it an immaculate conception? She writes absolutely zero about anything sexual and then suddenly she is pregnant? WTF. Again, it made me think of Patty Duke's memoir. Patty got pregnant during a manic episode and did not know who the father was. Promiscuity was part of Patty's manic episodes. I found it hard to imagine that was the case with little ol' asexual Kristin who describes herself several times as looking like a 13 year old who wears grandma clothes. Luckily Professor Google came to the rescue. I googled Kristin & discovered she lost custody of her oldest son when he was 3 during a bitter custody battle. WHAT? Why would a one-night stand(which is what Kristin's memoir implies) want custody? More Professor Google. Turns out the father was her long time boyfriend of several years. WHA????? This info made me very cynical towards the second half of the book when she was pregnant. I kept wondering why she left out the father of her baby. Her boyfriend. Was it revenge? Was it her fantasy of how she wished the pregnancy to have been? Who knows? All I know is that it negatively impacted my impression of her. Judges don't willy nilly hand over a child's custody to the father unless the father is involved in the kid's life. That whole section of the book left a bad taste in my mouth. And don't even get me started on choosing to keep the baby in that situation and not choose abortion or adoption. I don't get it.
I wish the book had focused only on her music. Those were by far the best parts of the book, the parts about her creativity and her performances and recording their first album. All other musicians memoirs that I have read focus on two things - either the "sex,drugs & rocknroll" lifestyle that the musician lives in an attempt to be like Keith Richards or Jimmy Page or the focus is on the business aspect of music. The contracts & money & touring & gold records & awards. There will be a bit about actually composing & playing music, but not much. What made Rat Girl so amazing was how her primary focus was on the art of music, the creation of music. It was a wonderful insight into the mind of a musician.
I have read easily 2 dozen memoirs/biographies of musicians and Rat Girl is in a class of it's own. Which is good and bad. The good part was how she wrote about music and song writing and performing. I enjoyed learning the tidbit that she liked performing with her contacts off so she couldn't see the audience. And as soon as she wrote about the colors she saw when playing or listening to music, I was thrilled. I saw a documentary a while ago that had a segment on synesthesia - a neurological condition where the person sees colors in music or letters or numbers. I found it fascinating to read about how she perceived music. Just really amazing. She goes into great detail about the colors of music. She also wrote a lot about her music hallucinations. That she did not write songs but merely recorded what she saw & heard outside of herself. It was not a surprise to me when she was diagnosed as bi-polar.
I read Patty Duke's memoir earlier this year. Patty also is bi-polar and wrote about having it but in a very, very, very different way than Kristin. Maybe because Patty is twenty years older than Kristin & was writing a traditional memoir wherein a person looks back upon their life and talks about it from almost a third person perspective. Rat Girl is written in the first person here & now. Patty wrote she had manic episodes & summarized what she did & how people reacted to her. Kristin shows the manic episodes from within. There is no omniscent narrative looking at the mania from the outside. I found it hard to read about and relate to Kristin but also found it eye-opening and educational to get a perspective like that. At times I felt like I was reading parts of Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury or perhaps Burrough's Junkie or Joyce's Ulysses. Not easy reading but worthwhile reading.
What bugged me the most about the book was how vague & opaque it was. Her lack of detail drove anal-retentive OCD me insane. There was not an easily followed timeline. Things and people were introduced in the storyline but not explained and then suddenly dropped. I got no sense of Kristin's family or homelife or friends or lovers. The book was incredibly internal. Which may be her point? That her mental illness consumed her and made her incredibly self-focused to the detriment of relations with other people? Still, I wondered how did she pay for her apartment in Boston? She mentions at the beginning of the book how poorly the band was paid. When & why did she stop living with her parents? Why weren't they more concerned about her being homeless for a while? Or were they?
Most importantly, where the hell did that pregnancy come from??? Was it an immaculate conception? She writes absolutely zero about anything sexual and then suddenly she is pregnant? WTF. Again, it made me think of Patty Duke's memoir. Patty got pregnant during a manic episode and did not know who the father was. Promiscuity was part of Patty's manic episodes. I found it hard to imagine that was the case with little ol' asexual Kristin who describes herself several times as looking like a 13 year old who wears grandma clothes. Luckily Professor Google came to the rescue. I googled Kristin & discovered she lost custody of her oldest son when he was 3 during a bitter custody battle. WHAT? Why would a one-night stand(which is what Kristin's memoir implies) want custody? More Professor Google. Turns out the father was her long time boyfriend of several years. WHA????? This info made me very cynical towards the second half of the book when she was pregnant. I kept wondering why she left out the father of her baby. Her boyfriend. Was it revenge? Was it her fantasy of how she wished the pregnancy to have been? Who knows? All I know is that it negatively impacted my impression of her. Judges don't willy nilly hand over a child's custody to the father unless the father is involved in the kid's life. That whole section of the book left a bad taste in my mouth. And don't even get me started on choosing to keep the baby in that situation and not choose abortion or adoption. I don't get it.
I wish the book had focused only on her music. Those were by far the best parts of the book, the parts about her creativity and her performances and recording their first album. All other musicians memoirs that I have read focus on two things - either the "sex,drugs & rocknroll" lifestyle that the musician lives in an attempt to be like Keith Richards or Jimmy Page or the focus is on the business aspect of music. The contracts & money & touring & gold records & awards. There will be a bit about actually composing & playing music, but not much. What made Rat Girl so amazing was how her primary focus was on the art of music, the creation of music. It was a wonderful insight into the mind of a musician.
August 8, 2020
I have a weakness for memoirs about music, and this story is pretty great. I loved her friends, and her strange ways. It´s truly an original way of describing the first part of her life, I think her mind is just translating everything in such a great way, it seems like fiction, so its more like a novel. Its one of those memoirs where you don't actually have to be a fan of her music to read, more like I feel like listening to her music more after having read this.
December 13, 2010
Only a tad bit past the Introduction - and what's this? - I want to write a "progress" review already just b/c it hits home already! I wasn't in a band - I was just a f**ked up artist teenager in the middle of a life that just kept getting stranger, sadder, funnier, more ironic (in the dictionary senses of the word), and oddly enough, I became stronger and more compassionate despite the deep-seated disgust and hate flowing through my being at that time. There's only so long after leaving home when you can blame your family for your bs; after all the screaming, finger-pointing, and destruction you still get to live with yourself, and you damn well better be prepared.
Hersh, though she has battled mental illness, family upheaval, and many moves in her life, manages to not only survive, but thrive listening to her own inner drummer in a world seemingly longing to take her out. Sure, she has legendary ups and downs, but she sees through them, becomes what she always was deep inside - a true artist - and this document, as painful as it is, she shares some of her process and personal pain and gifts.
Bravo, woman!
Hersh, though she has battled mental illness, family upheaval, and many moves in her life, manages to not only survive, but thrive listening to her own inner drummer in a world seemingly longing to take her out. Sure, she has legendary ups and downs, but she sees through them, becomes what she always was deep inside - a true artist - and this document, as painful as it is, she shares some of her process and personal pain and gifts.
Bravo, woman!
August 19, 2011
Original review:
Kristin Hersh (Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave and herself) writes about the most turbulent year in her life, a year of bipolarity and pregnancy and eccentric old women, a year she would revisit in countless songs in her career. She bears her past sufferings with dignity and writes in a unique, graceful way that never indulges in sentiment or self-pity. Her prose can be stylised at times, esp. with her bandmates’ repartee, but she has a good understanding of how to keep her narrative pumping along with entertaining brio.
Among the most illuminating sections are her insights into Throwing Muses songs: the “possession” that takes over when she finds her music. Her relationship with the old Hollywood luvvie Betty is also strange and touching. A few details are vague surrounding her pregnancy. Her parents don’t seem to lift a hand to help her, or she doesn’t approach them for help, and no mention of the father is made. It is assumed she must do the whole process alone, and this detail does sort of hang there, despite any reasons of privacy. Tremendous literary debut.
Update 19/8/11:
I saw Hersh at the Edinburgh Book Fest and she spoke about the pigswill of mainstream music, her fan-funded free music endeavour CASH music and why the title was changed for the UK market. She also touched on Vic Chestnutt, her tortured male equivalent, about how he once tore apart the wall of his house with an Exacto Knife because he thought the songs were coming from in the cavities. Haunting. She mentioned that ‘Your Ghost’ was written in Edinburgh too. Ha. She also signed a ticket stub and humoured my girlfriend, who drew her a kooky little doodle. Charming woman. And her music is capital U unique: start with University and go back from there. Great night!
Kristin Hersh (Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave and herself) writes about the most turbulent year in her life, a year of bipolarity and pregnancy and eccentric old women, a year she would revisit in countless songs in her career. She bears her past sufferings with dignity and writes in a unique, graceful way that never indulges in sentiment or self-pity. Her prose can be stylised at times, esp. with her bandmates’ repartee, but she has a good understanding of how to keep her narrative pumping along with entertaining brio.
Among the most illuminating sections are her insights into Throwing Muses songs: the “possession” that takes over when she finds her music. Her relationship with the old Hollywood luvvie Betty is also strange and touching. A few details are vague surrounding her pregnancy. Her parents don’t seem to lift a hand to help her, or she doesn’t approach them for help, and no mention of the father is made. It is assumed she must do the whole process alone, and this detail does sort of hang there, despite any reasons of privacy. Tremendous literary debut.
Update 19/8/11:
I saw Hersh at the Edinburgh Book Fest and she spoke about the pigswill of mainstream music, her fan-funded free music endeavour CASH music and why the title was changed for the UK market. She also touched on Vic Chestnutt, her tortured male equivalent, about how he once tore apart the wall of his house with an Exacto Knife because he thought the songs were coming from in the cavities. Haunting. She mentioned that ‘Your Ghost’ was written in Edinburgh too. Ha. She also signed a ticket stub and humoured my girlfriend, who drew her a kooky little doodle. Charming woman. And her music is capital U unique: start with University and go back from there. Great night!
January 11, 2014
[There might be some minor spoilers below, though probably nothing surprising and nothing that's not alluded to on the back cover]
When the early Throwing Muses records came out, I didn't pay much attention to them, not disliking them but kinda dismissing them as "madness rock" and being vaguely turned off by Kristin Hersh's unusual vocalizations (I think 'bleating' is an accurate, non-judgmental description of one of her techniques). Over the years, I came to like them a bit more and now, after reading Rat Girl, I've become a big fan, somewhat in awe of Hersh.
This memoir, written as a novel, describes her experiences during one hugely significant year, from Spring 1985 to Spring 1986, when she was 18/19. It's based on her diary, and written in the voice of a precocious teenager who is well aware of her 'outsiderness'. I initially thought this was going to keep me from enjoying (or finishing) the book, but after a few chapters the decision to use that voice felt right- it would've been odd to read this story from the relatively detached perspective of the wiser, forty-something author, devoid of the confusion and bewilderment that defined the year.
And what a year she describes. The bulk of the book describes a long-term manic episode, which she doesn't realizing she's experiencing until she suffers a sudden breakdown. After she reluctantly begins taking medications for her condition (and after the band has moved from Newport, R.I. to Boston to pursue their dream of being full-time musicians 'living in a van'), two life-altering events occur almost simultaneously: her band gets a recording contract, and she discovers she is pregnant.
The entire book is interesting, but I found the first two-thirds (about her then-undiagnosed time in 'Upland') to be particularly great. She describes her highly unusual songwriting process (of that year, anyway) in great detail, encompassing a fascinating and terrifying confluence of life-long synaesthesia (she has 'seen' music as vivid colors and shapes since early childhood), debilitating visual and aural hallucinations likely brought on by a horrible hit-and-run accident she was the victim of at 16, and some of the effects of her mania (she's developed her own mythology of what the songs are and how they affect her and the people who hear them. For instance, when she plays the songs or finishes writing one, she experiences them as 'tattoos' on her body, which can only be removed by swimming laps for hours at a time.). Her descriptions of the aural hallucinations are particularly striking- each song begins as undifferentiated noise, which her brain gradually (as in constantly, over the course of several days) and unconsciously organizes into notes, instruments, arrangements, syllables, and finally, words which she recognizes as fragments of stories from her life. She doesn't consider herself a songwriter so much as somebody who is a conduit for and wrangler of new songs. It's gripping stuff, making similar anecdotes in Oliver Sacks' "Musicophilia" pale in comparison (He needs to read this if he hasn't already. Hersh experiences several of the neurological phenomena he writes about, and her ability to describe them is probably keener than many of his subjects').
Her attitude- during her illness, and through the stressful period of making a record while in the third trimester of a pregnancy- is remarkable. She seems fearless (understandable during the manic period), but also displays a constant sense of wonder, and a near-complete lack of cynicism (unless she's talking about unnamed radio pop songs she hates, or rich Harvard kids who make lewd advances). Hersh seems to value kindness as the best quality a person can have and, luckily for her, she is surrounded by kind people who are unusually sympathetic and supportive: her bandmates, her senior-citizen-college-buddy-who-used-to-be-a-Hollywood-star Betty Hutton, Muses' producer Gil Norton, early booster and demo producer Gary Smith, and 4AD label owner Ivo Watts-Russell.
This is a rock memoir completely lacking in sex (but with a pregnancy), drugs (of the recreational kind, anyway), and rock and roll (other than Throwing Muses themselves). Unless I missed it, only three other bands are ever mentioned in the entire book: The Who, Pink Floyd, and Deep Purple. The Who is only mentioned in an anecdote describing an out-of-touch major label 'VIP' trying to make small talk with the Muses over dinner; a phone ringing in London "sounds like Pink Floyd"; and Deep Purple rudely kicks the Muses out of the studio in the middle of the recording of their 4AD debut. Teenage Kristin Hersh's highly solipsistic internal world doesn't allow for music as entertainment; to her it's a vital, evil (in a good way) force trying to form itself into song 'bodies' which exist in the physical world. In this memoir at least, she's too preoccupied by, well, everything, to enjoy listening to other music.
Hersh is surprisingly funny, too. Her descriptions of Ivo calling her from England every morning for a week to tell her that he owns a label but doesn't sign American bands, and an anecdote about running away during the recording of Throwing Muses' debut album, made me laugh out loud.
Recommended for anybody curious about the creative process (especially as it relates to mental condition), though I don't think many people can relate directly to hers.
Also, I found it very helpful to have on hand Throwing Muses' self-titled album and their Doghouse demo (both available on the In A Doghouse compilation album), as well as their amazing video for 'Fish' (filmed live in a loft while Hersh was visibly pregnant, but before Ivo Watt-Russell knew she was pregnant). The creation of each, from Hersh's unusual perspective, is described in detail in Rat Girl. These enhanced my enjoyment of the book, and the book enhanced my enjoyment of the music.
When the early Throwing Muses records came out, I didn't pay much attention to them, not disliking them but kinda dismissing them as "madness rock" and being vaguely turned off by Kristin Hersh's unusual vocalizations (I think 'bleating' is an accurate, non-judgmental description of one of her techniques). Over the years, I came to like them a bit more and now, after reading Rat Girl, I've become a big fan, somewhat in awe of Hersh.
This memoir, written as a novel, describes her experiences during one hugely significant year, from Spring 1985 to Spring 1986, when she was 18/19. It's based on her diary, and written in the voice of a precocious teenager who is well aware of her 'outsiderness'. I initially thought this was going to keep me from enjoying (or finishing) the book, but after a few chapters the decision to use that voice felt right- it would've been odd to read this story from the relatively detached perspective of the wiser, forty-something author, devoid of the confusion and bewilderment that defined the year.
And what a year she describes. The bulk of the book describes a long-term manic episode, which she doesn't realizing she's experiencing until she suffers a sudden breakdown. After she reluctantly begins taking medications for her condition (and after the band has moved from Newport, R.I. to Boston to pursue their dream of being full-time musicians 'living in a van'), two life-altering events occur almost simultaneously: her band gets a recording contract, and she discovers she is pregnant.
The entire book is interesting, but I found the first two-thirds (about her then-undiagnosed time in 'Upland') to be particularly great. She describes her highly unusual songwriting process (of that year, anyway) in great detail, encompassing a fascinating and terrifying confluence of life-long synaesthesia (she has 'seen' music as vivid colors and shapes since early childhood), debilitating visual and aural hallucinations likely brought on by a horrible hit-and-run accident she was the victim of at 16, and some of the effects of her mania (she's developed her own mythology of what the songs are and how they affect her and the people who hear them. For instance, when she plays the songs or finishes writing one, she experiences them as 'tattoos' on her body, which can only be removed by swimming laps for hours at a time.). Her descriptions of the aural hallucinations are particularly striking- each song begins as undifferentiated noise, which her brain gradually (as in constantly, over the course of several days) and unconsciously organizes into notes, instruments, arrangements, syllables, and finally, words which she recognizes as fragments of stories from her life. She doesn't consider herself a songwriter so much as somebody who is a conduit for and wrangler of new songs. It's gripping stuff, making similar anecdotes in Oliver Sacks' "Musicophilia" pale in comparison (He needs to read this if he hasn't already. Hersh experiences several of the neurological phenomena he writes about, and her ability to describe them is probably keener than many of his subjects').
Her attitude- during her illness, and through the stressful period of making a record while in the third trimester of a pregnancy- is remarkable. She seems fearless (understandable during the manic period), but also displays a constant sense of wonder, and a near-complete lack of cynicism (unless she's talking about unnamed radio pop songs she hates, or rich Harvard kids who make lewd advances). Hersh seems to value kindness as the best quality a person can have and, luckily for her, she is surrounded by kind people who are unusually sympathetic and supportive: her bandmates, her senior-citizen-college-buddy-who-used-to-be-a-Hollywood-star Betty Hutton, Muses' producer Gil Norton, early booster and demo producer Gary Smith, and 4AD label owner Ivo Watts-Russell.
This is a rock memoir completely lacking in sex (but with a pregnancy), drugs (of the recreational kind, anyway), and rock and roll (other than Throwing Muses themselves). Unless I missed it, only three other bands are ever mentioned in the entire book: The Who, Pink Floyd, and Deep Purple. The Who is only mentioned in an anecdote describing an out-of-touch major label 'VIP' trying to make small talk with the Muses over dinner; a phone ringing in London "sounds like Pink Floyd"; and Deep Purple rudely kicks the Muses out of the studio in the middle of the recording of their 4AD debut. Teenage Kristin Hersh's highly solipsistic internal world doesn't allow for music as entertainment; to her it's a vital, evil (in a good way) force trying to form itself into song 'bodies' which exist in the physical world. In this memoir at least, she's too preoccupied by, well, everything, to enjoy listening to other music.
Hersh is surprisingly funny, too. Her descriptions of Ivo calling her from England every morning for a week to tell her that he owns a label but doesn't sign American bands, and an anecdote about running away during the recording of Throwing Muses' debut album, made me laugh out loud.
Recommended for anybody curious about the creative process (especially as it relates to mental condition), though I don't think many people can relate directly to hers.
Also, I found it very helpful to have on hand Throwing Muses' self-titled album and their Doghouse demo (both available on the In A Doghouse compilation album), as well as their amazing video for 'Fish' (filmed live in a loft while Hersh was visibly pregnant, but before Ivo Watt-Russell knew she was pregnant). The creation of each, from Hersh's unusual perspective, is described in detail in Rat Girl. These enhanced my enjoyment of the book, and the book enhanced my enjoyment of the music.
October 29, 2010
The content of this book tends to fall into three categories: her music, her diagnosed bipolarity and her pregnancy. Being the self absorbed person that I am, I found the pieces of her life that I could actually relate, at least slightly, to be more compelling than the music parts. sometimes I felt she was a little heavy handed with the whole "I've got a musical demon inside me that must be released" type thing, but as soon as she went down that path, she'd quickly turn down a path that I felt was dealt with in just the right amount of "handedness".
And it's not that I've been diagnosed as being bipolar (not that there's anything wrong with that) but who doesn't know someone that has. And okay there might chart out there somewhere that has something like "maniac tendencies" written next time my name. My point?....I thought it was interesting to hear about her experiences in the world of mental health. The bipolar thing could have really given the book a myopic view of the world but I think she dealt with it (both in her personal life and in the book) in an amazingly balanced way. She didn't indite the reality of it nor glorify it - which is what I think people usually do. I LOVED her descriptions of, and questioning of what it means to be manic.
The pregnancy, loved, loved, loved it. Because again, she could have easily dwarfed the entire book with her pregnancy experience (in the same way that many pregnant women dwarf conversations with EVERY DETAIL of their wholly un-unique experience of being pregnant). Loved that she was awed by the "weirdness" of the whole growing-a-person-in-a-person thing (me too Kristin. me too. that shit is bizarre). and the sweetness but not the sappiness of her connection to the growing belly. Just loved that whole dang section.
*confession: I'm not exactly a super-hard-core Throwing Muses fan ("Say goodbye" get's a lot of play time on my ipod but other than that it's pretty hit and miss)
And it's not that I've been diagnosed as being bipolar (not that there's anything wrong with that) but who doesn't know someone that has. And okay there might chart out there somewhere that has something like "maniac tendencies" written next time my name. My point?....I thought it was interesting to hear about her experiences in the world of mental health. The bipolar thing could have really given the book a myopic view of the world but I think she dealt with it (both in her personal life and in the book) in an amazingly balanced way. She didn't indite the reality of it nor glorify it - which is what I think people usually do. I LOVED her descriptions of, and questioning of what it means to be manic.
The pregnancy, loved, loved, loved it. Because again, she could have easily dwarfed the entire book with her pregnancy experience (in the same way that many pregnant women dwarf conversations with EVERY DETAIL of their wholly un-unique experience of being pregnant). Loved that she was awed by the "weirdness" of the whole growing-a-person-in-a-person thing (me too Kristin. me too. that shit is bizarre). and the sweetness but not the sappiness of her connection to the growing belly. Just loved that whole dang section.
*confession: I'm not exactly a super-hard-core Throwing Muses fan ("Say goodbye" get's a lot of play time on my ipod but other than that it's pretty hit and miss)
October 24, 2010
Two weeks ago, if you had asked me to tell you everything I knew about the band Throwing Muses, I would have gone dough faced and dead eyed. "Canadian punk band?" I would have un-educatedly guessed. Somehow this foursome escaped my musical reckoning in the mid-80s.
I would have been wrong. But that wrongness at least says this: One does not have to be a Throwing Muses Head to want to metaphorically rub lead singer Kristin Hersh's memoir "Rat Girl" all over her body in hopes of absorbing a fraction of the smarts, words, and ideas directly into one's blood stream. Because science is not yet that sophisticated, I settled for turning the book into an origami version of itself, with at least 30 percent of the pages dog-eared.
This memoir, shelved in the bi-polar section of your local bookstore, is (for the amusement of using an out-of-character word) so lovely.
This is not the gelatinous mess that is a typical celebrity memoir -- to be expected as Throwing Muses is not a typical band. (I can say that now. I've downloaded plenty of its backlog in the past few days. For free. www.kristinhersh.com). Hersh captures 1985, the year Throwing Muses went from a bar band to label magnet in a series of vignettes and song lyrics, snippets pulled from the journals of a 19-year-old.
Blue-haired Hersh is squatting in a dead guy's house, taking college-level classes at a university where her father, whom she calls "Dude," teaches hippie-based courses that start with deep relaxation exercises of the soul-scorching kind. She breaks into backyard pools in the middle of the night to swim laps to combat her insomnia. Her best friend Betty is of AARP membership age, a former Hollywood starlet who imagines she is one wrong turn from an onslaught of paparazzi.
Throwing Muses play gigs at local clubs they aren't even old enough to patronize, and sometimes get stuck paying a cover charge if they walk outside before their set.
Ever since she was hit by a car, Hersh hears music in the white noise around her. And when a song strikes, she must immediately work it out on her guitar.
Throughout the rest of the year she will move with her band mates into an apartment in Boston, space shared with other artists, and with Harvard thugs for neighbors. Hersh is diagnosed as bipolar.Throwing Muses will attract a following and get good chatter from local press. Fans will leave gifts on their door step, and a dude with an international phone number will express an interest in signing the band. And, despite any hint that Hersh has ever seen a naked man, she gets pregnant with the band's baby.
These single serving stories don't make a quote-unquote plot. They are carefully worded, and artfully selected moments in a life -- many that inspired lyrics. They reveal Hersh to be genuinely surprised that Throwing Muses have fans, and even a little ambivalent about it. Her three band mates make just cameos, but they are drawn so tenderly. Not the way one would write about family, but with the soft touch one would use to write about a partner with whom they are truly smitten. (But Hersh kind of treats everyone like this. From the old ladies on the bus, to the junkies at their shows, her default seems to be liking people as much as is possible for a loner).
"Rat Girl" is light on glitz and glamour. (Hersh describes her style as homeless, and her hugest goal is to tour with her band and live out of a van). It is ripe with introspection and imagery. Hersh's voice is so unique and her life so interesting that I imagine reading this book is a lot like what music hounds in the 80s felt when they first heard the band.
I would have been wrong. But that wrongness at least says this: One does not have to be a Throwing Muses Head to want to metaphorically rub lead singer Kristin Hersh's memoir "Rat Girl" all over her body in hopes of absorbing a fraction of the smarts, words, and ideas directly into one's blood stream. Because science is not yet that sophisticated, I settled for turning the book into an origami version of itself, with at least 30 percent of the pages dog-eared.
This memoir, shelved in the bi-polar section of your local bookstore, is (for the amusement of using an out-of-character word) so lovely.
This is not the gelatinous mess that is a typical celebrity memoir -- to be expected as Throwing Muses is not a typical band. (I can say that now. I've downloaded plenty of its backlog in the past few days. For free. www.kristinhersh.com). Hersh captures 1985, the year Throwing Muses went from a bar band to label magnet in a series of vignettes and song lyrics, snippets pulled from the journals of a 19-year-old.
Blue-haired Hersh is squatting in a dead guy's house, taking college-level classes at a university where her father, whom she calls "Dude," teaches hippie-based courses that start with deep relaxation exercises of the soul-scorching kind. She breaks into backyard pools in the middle of the night to swim laps to combat her insomnia. Her best friend Betty is of AARP membership age, a former Hollywood starlet who imagines she is one wrong turn from an onslaught of paparazzi.
Throwing Muses play gigs at local clubs they aren't even old enough to patronize, and sometimes get stuck paying a cover charge if they walk outside before their set.
Ever since she was hit by a car, Hersh hears music in the white noise around her. And when a song strikes, she must immediately work it out on her guitar.
Throughout the rest of the year she will move with her band mates into an apartment in Boston, space shared with other artists, and with Harvard thugs for neighbors. Hersh is diagnosed as bipolar.Throwing Muses will attract a following and get good chatter from local press. Fans will leave gifts on their door step, and a dude with an international phone number will express an interest in signing the band. And, despite any hint that Hersh has ever seen a naked man, she gets pregnant with the band's baby.
These single serving stories don't make a quote-unquote plot. They are carefully worded, and artfully selected moments in a life -- many that inspired lyrics. They reveal Hersh to be genuinely surprised that Throwing Muses have fans, and even a little ambivalent about it. Her three band mates make just cameos, but they are drawn so tenderly. Not the way one would write about family, but with the soft touch one would use to write about a partner with whom they are truly smitten. (But Hersh kind of treats everyone like this. From the old ladies on the bus, to the junkies at their shows, her default seems to be liking people as much as is possible for a loner).
"Rat Girl" is light on glitz and glamour. (Hersh describes her style as homeless, and her hugest goal is to tour with her band and live out of a van). It is ripe with introspection and imagery. Hersh's voice is so unique and her life so interesting that I imagine reading this book is a lot like what music hounds in the 80s felt when they first heard the band.
September 24, 2013
Fantastic. I loved this book. Like, a lot. Kristin Hersh writes this "memoir" as a novel and it's a novel with many colorful and interesting characters, none more so than Ms. Hersh herself. Her writing is full of humor and a fun quirkiness. I can't remember the last book I read where I felt compelled to read passages aloud to anyone who happened to be near me, most often co-workers in my office cafeteria or my fiancé at home. I especially loved the relationship with Betty Hutton. Ms. Hersh might not have known who she was when they first met, but I knew who she was immediately and to read about this part of her "retired" life was endlessly fascinating. There are some heavy subjects in this book: manic depression, teenage pregnancy, homelessness, art vs. commerciality, music as an expression of the soul, but the book never felt heavy. It was light and bouncy and funny and poignant and honest and lyrical and mesmerizing. I was sad when it ended.
December 7, 2011
I've been a lifelong Throwing Muses fan. I say that because I got into the Muses when I was about 11 (via older friends who liked to make mix tapes), and their early records are just as resonant to me now, a week before I turn 30, than they were when I first heard them. I don't always like to "pierce the veil" and peek behind the artist through memoir because they are usually exercises in self-indulgence and self-loathing in equal parts. But this was really great. Less a memoir and more an edited diary, Rat Girl chronicles the earliest days of Muses-hood and the recording of their first record for 4AD. Kristin Hersh used to send out excerpts from this diary to her mail list a few years ago, and I loved reading them then. I'm glad she went ahead and made it a full book. I hope she has another installment in the works! I'd love to read about the Pixies tours, etc...
June 16, 2013
This book was incredibly boring up until she had her mental break, interesting for 20 pages, then incredibly boring again after she got pregnant. I would have liked more details on her pregnancy. She portrayed herself as an incredibly naive, very young, teenager and didn't give any indication that she was sexually active so the pregnancy was very unexpected. This memoir would have been more interesting if it had spanned more than one year of her life. I had no idea who Throwing Muses were before I read this and the book gave me no indication of what happened with them. Also, I really didn't like the random song lyrics after her stories. Most of the lyrics were direct rip-offs of something that someone had said to her. Her denial that any of the songs were about her was also very annoying, as it was apparent that EVERY song was about her.
August 16, 2011
I am surprised that this book rated an average of 4 stars. To me, it seemed as though the author was screaming and shouting through the whole book "Look at me! See how alternative and 'not-cool' I am with my sketchy behavior?" I can't stand people who do the whole "I'm cool on account of how un-main-stream and weird I am", un-main-stream is totally mainstream these days. Maybe it's that she was un-cool before being un-cool was so cool, who knows? At any rate, I was totally un-shocked by the author's attempt to present herself as shocking. The whole thing smacked of alternative-trendy-look-at-me-ness.
May 18, 2024
"Passion for sound, reptiles, old ladies, guitars, a car, water, weather, friends, colors, chords, children, a band, fish, light, and shadow." I loved the way she sees sound as colors/images/shapes, songs as bodies, music as religion (Fish jesus!!)
April 29, 2015
This memoir is strange and beautiful, sharply philosophical and very funny. I picked it up by accident thinking it was a graphic novel of some kind (I hope there is a graphic interpretation of this soon!) and could not put it down.
There is such awe, humility, so much love and so little pettiness in these pages. And yet when reviewers call her outlook "child-like", I don't know what they mean. I suppose we're all child-like at eighteen in the ways that we are, and already sophisticated and world-weary in ways we may never be again.
The humor is hard to describe. Some of it comes from Hersch's matter-of-fact observations of outrageous situations, or her outrageous observations of seemingly mundane situations. Hersch is a beautiful storyteller, but part of power of this book comes from her refusal to tell a story with a certain refined elegance. The dialogue is extraordinary, and there is something in her way of approaching conversations and particularly interviews within the pages of "Rat Girl" that translates into her writing style.
Hersch is not interested in captivating us with her story and she is not interested in wrapping it up in an easily consumed package and saying what we want to hear. She has her own way of observing and understanding the world as she encounters it, and she is not going to compromise her integrity for the sake of what she calls "fashion" or "style" and I'm pretty sure it makes this book trustworthy, I hesitate here, because these things are complicated and not so easy to unravel, but I think his book, unlike many or even most books, is unmanipulative. Her voice, the voice of her eighteen year old self as shaped by her much more experienced self, refuses to offer a narrative that we can objectify or easily assimilate. Hersch has too much reverence for the strangeness of the world to make it an ordinary place.
There is such awe, humility, so much love and so little pettiness in these pages. And yet when reviewers call her outlook "child-like", I don't know what they mean. I suppose we're all child-like at eighteen in the ways that we are, and already sophisticated and world-weary in ways we may never be again.
The humor is hard to describe. Some of it comes from Hersch's matter-of-fact observations of outrageous situations, or her outrageous observations of seemingly mundane situations. Hersch is a beautiful storyteller, but part of power of this book comes from her refusal to tell a story with a certain refined elegance. The dialogue is extraordinary, and there is something in her way of approaching conversations and particularly interviews within the pages of "Rat Girl" that translates into her writing style.
Hersch is not interested in captivating us with her story and she is not interested in wrapping it up in an easily consumed package and saying what we want to hear. She has her own way of observing and understanding the world as she encounters it, and she is not going to compromise her integrity for the sake of what she calls "fashion" or "style" and I'm pretty sure it makes this book trustworthy, I hesitate here, because these things are complicated and not so easy to unravel, but I think his book, unlike many or even most books, is unmanipulative. Her voice, the voice of her eighteen year old self as shaped by her much more experienced self, refuses to offer a narrative that we can objectify or easily assimilate. Hersch has too much reverence for the strangeness of the world to make it an ordinary place.
October 15, 2010
This is a hard one to rate by stars--I found it well-written with a strong voice and some wonderful turns of phrase; it was gripping and hard to put down, even when I really wanted to, and I found myself thinking about Kristin as I went about my day; it was also almost unbearably sad and real at some points.
I think I've become a mom. Even though I had some pretty dicey moments at nineteen (Kristin's age at the time she describes here) and that wasn't the closest period in my relationship with my family, I still kept thinking as I read "where were her parents?!!!"
It also seems that I think that suffering for art is a bad trade. I loved Kristin's songs, but if that's what she had to go through for me to hear them, then I almost wish I could give them back. This was lent to me by a hard core Throwing Muses fan and for him the equation is significantly different and the glimpse into the process of creation was more meaningful.
In the end, therefore, I think that while there is much here to appreciate, how much you like it may come down to how well you know and like the author's early music.
I think I've become a mom. Even though I had some pretty dicey moments at nineteen (Kristin's age at the time she describes here) and that wasn't the closest period in my relationship with my family, I still kept thinking as I read "where were her parents?!!!"
It also seems that I think that suffering for art is a bad trade. I loved Kristin's songs, but if that's what she had to go through for me to hear them, then I almost wish I could give them back. This was lent to me by a hard core Throwing Muses fan and for him the equation is significantly different and the glimpse into the process of creation was more meaningful.
In the end, therefore, I think that while there is much here to appreciate, how much you like it may come down to how well you know and like the author's early music.
October 30, 2014
I actually had to pause my reading of this book half way through for several reasons and, although I did finish it (because I always finish my books), I think I theoretically would have been ok leaving it where it sat. To me this book was….fine. I found Hersh hard to get along with. Not in an aggressive way necessarily, I just struggled to find that connection in her words that could bring me a connection with her. Instead of serving to open a door and connect the reader, it felt more like being told a story by someone who had told the story one too many times. As if this was just one more recitation to get through. What I found made a difference was actually listening to Throwing Muses while reading stories; especially listening to the songs that are quoted throughout the passages. It was almost as if the words just created a balloon but you really needed the music to fill it and actually make it float – something I think Hersh might just agree with having read more about her physical connection and empowerment by music.
I wish I had more to say than that about it but this one just left me feeling….meh.
I wish I had more to say than that about it but this one just left me feeling….meh.
October 5, 2010
It was overdetermined that I would love this book, given how much I love Throwing Muses and Hersh's music, but I cannot overstate how well-written and gripping Rat Girl is. The story is so present in each moment that I was surprised by every turn of events, even though I already knew many of the outcomes.
Without draining any of the songs of their animation or mystery, the book gives back story on dozens of Muses songs. My favorite new insight is into "Hate My Way," a song that starts as a caricature of teen angst but becomes terrifying in short order. I had always wondered about that violent corner it turns, and it's completely explained here (yet still, nothing can really explain where songs come from).
That said, this is nothing like extended liner notes; the background on songs is integral but the focus of the book is intensely personal. I think even if this had been a book about a different artform or an artist whose work I didn't know, I would have been riveted. Hersh has recreated a self-contained universe that feels hyper-real.
I highly recommend this book!
Without draining any of the songs of their animation or mystery, the book gives back story on dozens of Muses songs. My favorite new insight is into "Hate My Way," a song that starts as a caricature of teen angst but becomes terrifying in short order. I had always wondered about that violent corner it turns, and it's completely explained here (yet still, nothing can really explain where songs come from).
That said, this is nothing like extended liner notes; the background on songs is integral but the focus of the book is intensely personal. I think even if this had been a book about a different artform or an artist whose work I didn't know, I would have been riveted. Hersh has recreated a self-contained universe that feels hyper-real.
I highly recommend this book!
October 16, 2010
Kristin Hersh's "Rat Girl" deconstructs the notion of memoir. The book takes place during only one tumultuous year during the singer's life but it manages to cover so much: Bi-polar disorder, her band Throwing Muse's record deal and recording of their first album and the pregnancy and birth of her first child.
If someone wasn't familiar with Hersh or Throwing Muses and picked up this book he or she would probably be confused. Hersh is vague about a lot of the details on things that exist around her so I could see someone feeling slighted--as if she were only telling the smallest slice of the story.
And yet her voice on paper (just as on record) is so vibrant--alternately dark and grim, caustic, sad, happy and very very funny--that I think it's enough to carry any reader along.
I've been a Throwing Muses/Hersh fan since I was 19 and I loved this book for its insight, honesty and, most of all, ability to make me laugh out loud.
If someone wasn't familiar with Hersh or Throwing Muses and picked up this book he or she would probably be confused. Hersh is vague about a lot of the details on things that exist around her so I could see someone feeling slighted--as if she were only telling the smallest slice of the story.
And yet her voice on paper (just as on record) is so vibrant--alternately dark and grim, caustic, sad, happy and very very funny--that I think it's enough to carry any reader along.
I've been a Throwing Muses/Hersh fan since I was 19 and I loved this book for its insight, honesty and, most of all, ability to make me laugh out loud.
Read
October 28, 2010there's no way i'm going to finish this. i'm a huge throwing muses fan, but the tedium of reading her innermost thoughts that in truth read like throwing muses lyrics unsung, is a little much for even a fan. it's just taking me too long to get through it and it's more of a chore than a joy. listen to "red heaven" instead of reading this.
December 28, 2011
Interesting. I didn't expect a tell all, and I knew she had a child at a young age, but the pregnancy came out of nowhere, like it was the immaculate conception -- where is the father? There was no indication that she had had a relationship with anyone who could be the father.
August 10, 2015
This was a neat book. Beautifully written and made me laughs in certain spots. Glad I picked this one up on a whim.
November 12, 2022
Outstanding. Oddly enough I saw Throwing Muses in 1991 and Kristin was pregnant then! This memoir detailing her early days with the band and her personal struggle with a diagnosis of bipolar displays a level of self-awareness which many of us would do well to emulate. In addition she falls pregnant and has to come to terms with being a young mother and recording a first LP with the band.
She's still out there touring and has a solid body of musical endeavors to boot, I'm just sorry it took me so long to read this story of her start in the music world, it's that good.
She's still out there touring and has a solid body of musical endeavors to boot, I'm just sorry it took me so long to read this story of her start in the music world, it's that good.
October 1, 2011
Let me preface this review by reiterating the fact that I have a hard time with female vocalists. For me, many of them blend together into interchangeable background noise. In fact, I can only think of a few female singers that I even like - Joan Baez, Carole King, Mahalia Jackson, Emmylou Harris, and too many classic soul singers (Motown, Stax, etc.) to count. I know it's lame that I can't name check the hottest new indie female powerhouse (Adele? Is that one?) The point is, and with the disclosure that I'm sure I'm forgetting some deserving soul(s), there are not that many.
Someone that does belong on that list is Kristin Hersh. Let's face it, her voice sounds like Beelzebub reincarnate snarling and ready to destroy all in her path. At least that's what I hear in her work with Throwing Muses and as a solo artist. With that out of the way, she is not a very good writer. In Rat Girl we are made privy to one year of her life - when she was 19 and the year was 1985. Let's just say some good (Throwing Muses broke), bad (she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder), and life-changing (she became pregnant) shit happened that year. We learn that Kristin was a bohemian that didn't want to be considered bohemian, she loathed "art," yet she describes her voice and the music speaking to her over and over again. Also, there are endless too-cool-for-school exchanges with her and the band. What surprised me was that she was an avid swimmer, shockingly sensitive, and never reveals the father of her child. This is her right, obviously, but I think that a memoir is a category of book that leans to the side of full disclosure on the part of the author. I found her description of living with bipolar disorder and the effect it had on her life very moving and brave. Alternately, I was left wondering who the father was because she depicts herself as almost asexual, or at least indifferent about her attraction to men or women. As the reader, it felt like being told to make yourself at home and then being told that the cookies on the table are off limits. Sorry, maybe it's the People magazine syndrome in me, I just wanted to know who the dad was.
Ultimately, the true power of Rat Girl lies in the behind the scenes peek into the rise of the Throwing Muses from the eyes of its de facto leader. Like most great things, it happened by accident. They didn't give a shit, but the right people did - and we are better for their superior vision. It doesn't matter that Hersh will never win the Pulizter, she was/is an original mind. She does was she wants - still - on her own terms, including writing a memoir that she admits is "riddled with enormous holes and true," and even with my elitist literary objections it was still a fairly interesting read.
Someone that does belong on that list is Kristin Hersh. Let's face it, her voice sounds like Beelzebub reincarnate snarling and ready to destroy all in her path. At least that's what I hear in her work with Throwing Muses and as a solo artist. With that out of the way, she is not a very good writer. In Rat Girl we are made privy to one year of her life - when she was 19 and the year was 1985. Let's just say some good (Throwing Muses broke), bad (she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder), and life-changing (she became pregnant) shit happened that year. We learn that Kristin was a bohemian that didn't want to be considered bohemian, she loathed "art," yet she describes her voice and the music speaking to her over and over again. Also, there are endless too-cool-for-school exchanges with her and the band. What surprised me was that she was an avid swimmer, shockingly sensitive, and never reveals the father of her child. This is her right, obviously, but I think that a memoir is a category of book that leans to the side of full disclosure on the part of the author. I found her description of living with bipolar disorder and the effect it had on her life very moving and brave. Alternately, I was left wondering who the father was because she depicts herself as almost asexual, or at least indifferent about her attraction to men or women. As the reader, it felt like being told to make yourself at home and then being told that the cookies on the table are off limits. Sorry, maybe it's the People magazine syndrome in me, I just wanted to know who the dad was.
Ultimately, the true power of Rat Girl lies in the behind the scenes peek into the rise of the Throwing Muses from the eyes of its de facto leader. Like most great things, it happened by accident. They didn't give a shit, but the right people did - and we are better for their superior vision. It doesn't matter that Hersh will never win the Pulizter, she was/is an original mind. She does was she wants - still - on her own terms, including writing a memoir that she admits is "riddled with enormous holes and true," and even with my elitist literary objections it was still a fairly interesting read.
September 4, 2012
Recommended by Suzanne of Goodreads (LA).
Something must be going on as it took me a little while for me to realize that I was picking up such personal book—both in terms of what Hersh does with this memoir of one year (1985) and how it touches me through commonalities of time, location and artistic environs. I loved the music of that period (punk rock)… still do although I haven't thrown a recording on in over a decade.
For some reason, I hadn't made the connection to Hersh's Throwing Muses, with the numerous bands that 4ad published/promoted and to whom I listened to incessantly while in graduate art school. Realizing halfway through this book that oh, yeah, Kim Deal worked with Tanya ('Tea' in the Hersh book, her sister) in The Breeders, I went *oh!* and fell even harder for this incredibly raw, funny and thoughtful memoir.
Hersh's diatribe/philosophical musings on the musicians in the biz, and recording industry was definitely a fully self-aware statement of someone who wasn't going to engage: "We don't tell these people that they're in the fashion industry not the music industry, cause that would be rude, but it seems obvious to us that music is timeless, fashion ephemeral. Our orientations are necessarily opposed. It'd be like trying to sell paintings as wallpaper; people would hate that, it'd hurt their feelings. Really, record companies are in the marketing business. Fashion probably wasn't evil before marketing people got involved and tried to invent it themselves and then sell it to America's youth by convincing them that the rest of America' youth were already partaking. Fashion probably began as a groundswell of beauty: the tribe enjoying the way buildings look and music sounds, right now, in this moment. That's valuable, because it allows for substance to shift styles. But marketing'll do anything to avoid substance and engage only in style… THere's no way we could play that game even if we wanted to. We'd suck at it; we have no ambition in that world. Our ambition is limited to the next song, the next show. If someone wants to listen, we're touched; if no one wants to listen, we figure they're missing out. Which means we're too up our own asses to be marketed nationally, big-ass hype or no… [195]
Hersh, defining passion: "I think you need something in your life that is both beautiful and necessary. A person or a mission or a place. Beautiful might not be pretty, and necessary might not be understood, but, still… I think caring, not death, is a passport to heaven." …The boy [interviewer] leans back against the Universal Couch.'Do you have to go to hell to get to heaven?" This has never occurred to me before. [204]
Something must be going on as it took me a little while for me to realize that I was picking up such personal book—both in terms of what Hersh does with this memoir of one year (1985) and how it touches me through commonalities of time, location and artistic environs. I loved the music of that period (punk rock)… still do although I haven't thrown a recording on in over a decade.
For some reason, I hadn't made the connection to Hersh's Throwing Muses, with the numerous bands that 4ad published/promoted and to whom I listened to incessantly while in graduate art school. Realizing halfway through this book that oh, yeah, Kim Deal worked with Tanya ('Tea' in the Hersh book, her sister) in The Breeders, I went *oh!* and fell even harder for this incredibly raw, funny and thoughtful memoir.
Hersh's diatribe/philosophical musings on the musicians in the biz, and recording industry was definitely a fully self-aware statement of someone who wasn't going to engage: "We don't tell these people that they're in the fashion industry not the music industry, cause that would be rude, but it seems obvious to us that music is timeless, fashion ephemeral. Our orientations are necessarily opposed. It'd be like trying to sell paintings as wallpaper; people would hate that, it'd hurt their feelings. Really, record companies are in the marketing business. Fashion probably wasn't evil before marketing people got involved and tried to invent it themselves and then sell it to America's youth by convincing them that the rest of America' youth were already partaking. Fashion probably began as a groundswell of beauty: the tribe enjoying the way buildings look and music sounds, right now, in this moment. That's valuable, because it allows for substance to shift styles. But marketing'll do anything to avoid substance and engage only in style… THere's no way we could play that game even if we wanted to. We'd suck at it; we have no ambition in that world. Our ambition is limited to the next song, the next show. If someone wants to listen, we're touched; if no one wants to listen, we figure they're missing out. Which means we're too up our own asses to be marketed nationally, big-ass hype or no… [195]
Hersh, defining passion: "I think you need something in your life that is both beautiful and necessary. A person or a mission or a place. Beautiful might not be pretty, and necessary might not be understood, but, still… I think caring, not death, is a passport to heaven." …The boy [interviewer] leans back against the Universal Couch.'Do you have to go to hell to get to heaven?" This has never occurred to me before. [204]
October 29, 2016
Rarely has a book been so ill-served by its title or by its American cover, a spare drawing of a worried young woman by Gilbert Hernandez after Charles Burns. The teenage narrator of "Rat Girl" doesn't waste a lot of time in apprehension, and she doesn't hang out with rats, much, although a snake makes a significant appearance. She's brave, naïve, wildly creative, and mostly upbeat—someone everybody would be better off knowing, even if they couldn't keep up with her for more than an hour in real life.
Based on a journal kept during the year before the release of the first Throwing Muses album, "Rat Girl" is a powerful and often hilarious portrait of a young artist like no other. Gifted (or cursed) with synesthesia and a sense of being literally possessed by sounds that have their own will and demand expression, young Kristin alternates between attending community college and living in squats. Her best friend at college is an aged movie queen, once on the cover of all the national magazines. Her father, remote in the book as one senses he was remote all through her childhood, is a hippie professor she calls "Dude." In the wee hours, Kristin stays up with her battered guitar, exorcising the music that will only torment her if not released. Her band plays clubs they're not allowed to attend; they are paid so little that it often costs them to play. One senses she'd be happy enough to go on like this forever, but life has its own plans and demands some tough choices.
The adult Hersh captures the voice of her young self so perfectly that it takes close reading to realize that the book wasn't merely channeled. Key details are revealed just when the reader needs to know them, and never before. Other characters' voices are perfectly rendered, sometimes sophisticated, occasionally wise, always unique to the person speaking. Although based on a journal, and firmly grounded in the perspective of the journal keeper, the book reads like the work of an assured author with several novels behind her. It's an amazing achievement.
Based on a journal kept during the year before the release of the first Throwing Muses album, "Rat Girl" is a powerful and often hilarious portrait of a young artist like no other. Gifted (or cursed) with synesthesia and a sense of being literally possessed by sounds that have their own will and demand expression, young Kristin alternates between attending community college and living in squats. Her best friend at college is an aged movie queen, once on the cover of all the national magazines. Her father, remote in the book as one senses he was remote all through her childhood, is a hippie professor she calls "Dude." In the wee hours, Kristin stays up with her battered guitar, exorcising the music that will only torment her if not released. Her band plays clubs they're not allowed to attend; they are paid so little that it often costs them to play. One senses she'd be happy enough to go on like this forever, but life has its own plans and demands some tough choices.
The adult Hersh captures the voice of her young self so perfectly that it takes close reading to realize that the book wasn't merely channeled. Key details are revealed just when the reader needs to know them, and never before. Other characters' voices are perfectly rendered, sometimes sophisticated, occasionally wise, always unique to the person speaking. Although based on a journal, and firmly grounded in the perspective of the journal keeper, the book reads like the work of an assured author with several novels behind her. It's an amazing achievement.
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