Seeing Sideways: A Memoir of Music and Motherhood

American Music Series

by Kristin Hersh

Doony, Ryder, Wyatt, Bodhi. The names of Kristin Hersh’s sons are the only ones included in her new memoir, Seeing Sideways . As the book unfolds and her sons’ voices rise from its pages, it becomes clear these names tell the story of her life. This story begins in 1990, when Hersh is the leader of the indie rock group Throwing Muses, touring steadily, and the mother of a young son, Doony. The chapters that follow reveal a woman and mother whose life and career grow and change with each of her the story of a custody battle for Doony is told alongside that of Hersh’s struggles with her record company and the resulting PTSD; the tale of breaking free from her record label stands in counterpoint to her recounting of her pregnancy with Ryder; a period of writer’s block coincides with the development of Wyatt as an artist and the family’s loss of their home; and finally, soon after Bodhi’s arrival, Hersh and her boys face crises from which only strange angels can save them. Punctuated with her own song lyrics, Seeing Sideways is a memoir about a life strange enough to be fiction, but so raw and moving that it can only be real.

Genres: Music, Memoir, Biography, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir

342 pages, Hardcover

Published May 4, 2021

About the author

Kristin Hersh (born August 7, 1966) is an American singer, songwriter and author.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[julieta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, strange mind at work in this book. I loved that it is not at all what you expect in a memoir, but it is her personal way of making you see her world. Original, and beautiful.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It is spring, and the children and I have come home, wild-eyed and panicked, to the island where most of them were born. We begin living in circles. I’ve done this before, boys. Here, on the island. Circles are actually spirals. It’ll be ok."

When I was about 20, I started losing my mind. Or I thought I was losing my mind. I started losing my mind over the feeling that I was losing my mind.

It felt like death. I was constantly scared. I turned to art, hoping for some kind of salvation, some kind of understanding. Theatre, literature, and especially music. Kristin Hersh saved my mind, sort of. Partly. But an important part(ly).

She became a companion of sorts, someone I could relate to through her incredible music as a solo artist and of course in her band, Throwing Muses. Here was someone with her own mental issues, and she made it work, she produced fantastic art.

I'm just telling you all this, to give some idea how important she is to me. And how important her music and her books are to me, including this one.

"That night, I played a quiet show. Played quietly and people listened quietly. Not nice or anything, but passion can wear all kinds of volume."

The book is her second memoir, structured around the pregnancies and births of her four sons. Inbetween there are stories of her nomadic life, how much she hates the mainstream music industry, how she basically dumps that same industry, how she works on her music. How she suddenly loses touch with that music, and how she survived that artistically.

"Taking the baby was supposed to kill me, but mothers can’t die, so that plan didn’t work. I’m alive and disappearing instead. No one knows what to do about that. Least of all me."

Reading the first chapter is like sticking your head into a storm.

It tells the story of her first child, and how child protection services tried to take him away from her, and how that basically triggered the PTSD she has been wrestling with most of her life.

Reading it feels like you're wondering around in a labyrinth, at the same time feeling lost and like you are in exactly the right place. The writing is chaotic and precise, obtuse and exact. It's filled with pain and fear, and anger. It is draining and rewarding.

"Market this record as a search for those who want to hear it; a symbiotic relationship, cuz we’ll keep those listeners forever. If it has to be about the bottom line? You will sell more in the long run if you earn listeners’ loyalty by offering quality. Which, in music? Doesn’t cost any more than suck does."

Later chapters settle down a bit (so to speak), and there is more room for observations on the music business, and her place in it. There are excerpts from interviews, which tend to range from hilarious to profound (or both).

"My drummer: When people find out that your songs are all literally true? That you aren’t a poet at all. You’re gonna be in so much goddamn trouble."

The book is peppered with quoted lyrics, and I've never really realised how her lyrics are not just poetic, but also referring very specific experiences. It shouldn't have surprised me, and still it did.

Other persons are never named, only referred to in general terms - my drummer, my bass player, the man (as in: her man). Only the boys are named.

"Music is the color! It’s sound-sex. It’s a great, intense world."

The writing is lyrical, sharp, beautiful, incredibly moving. And so funny. Kristin Hersh is not "just" a mother, she is proudly and unabashedly (and sometimes slightly apprehensively) a mother. Because: "This isn’t real. Babies and guitars are real."

(Huge thanks to the University of Texas Press for providing me with an ARC through Edelweiss)

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange. Dreamy. Trippy. At times, beautiful. Almost gave up 10 pages in but glad I stuck it out.

[MavM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this 4 stars, but it's closer to 3 than 5, whereas Rat Girl was nearer 5. Rat Girl, Hersh's first memoir tells the story of 1 year in her life, which ends with her first album in the can and her first child newly born.

Rat Girl is selective in what it tells you, it never mentions the father of the child, for instance. This is even more so. It spans her whole career, but don't read this to see why Tanya Donelly left the Muses, or why Kristin Hersh went solo. You get snippets of incidents, some of them very funny and many very odd, making it a funny book, but mainly it is about balancing motherhood and music.

The gimmick, that only her son's names ( and hers) are ever used, takes a while to get used to. The father of children 2-4 is the man, there is her drummer, her bass player, etc. Albums are recorded, but never named. But I got used to this and read faster as I went on.

So it's a book for fans. I spent much of the time reading with the Real Ramona, Learn to Sing like a Star, the Fat Skier playing in headphones. It worked well. Rat Girl is the better book, but both tell, through snippets and hints, the life of a musician very well.

[Dennis Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kristin Hersh is a visionary outsider. Her first book Rat Girl is in my top ten of memoirs by musicians. There are many musicians who can write a song or many songs, but the long form is just too long for their style or lack thereof. KH writes prose like a poet; she recreates a mood, a true sense of her experiences. This is not a book that lists chronological memories, how I wrote this, who I fucked or did not, what bands I liked etc.
Her new book Seeing Sideways “A Memoir of Music and Motherhood”. She has four kids; her book is divided by each child and memories of the time when each arrived.
“I had been setting myself on fire a lot. Leaning over candles, a diaphanous sleeve evaporated around my arm. Our ancient gas stove lifted a blind braid in crinkling blue flames. I watched, quietly fascinated. Fire….finds you? “
Interspersed are fragments of lyrics, some of which found their way into her songs. Quote from Krazy Kat,”I’m worried about the end of the world.”

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Podcast chat with Kristin Hersh.

Kristin Hersh: Seeing Sideways: A Memoir of Music and Motherhood

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a five star read for sure, but my gawd is Kristin Hersh fucking annoying. Why is she so mad at the music business anyway? She contends constantly that "people don't even know what they like" in music but like, has she ever heard HEY YA? How could you hate popular music when HEY YA exists? I dunno. I guess I went straight from Lilith Fairies to hip-hoperas. Rappers love business. They are all f'in socialist because they started their own labels and hired all their friends and did it all just because they love like, poetry. And they did it all wayyyyy before Kristin Hersh glommed on to the idea. Just because music is popular does not mean it isn't good, or good for you. This book cannot be rated.

[Stephen Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

What makes a life difficult, and what makes it beautiful? The answer, of course, is that it's often simultaneously one and the other. We can get stuck in the details, caught in the suck, or we can pull back and see the light. It's always there.

This is a memoir of trauma and joy, both spectacular and ordinary. A glimpse into the mind of a singularly talented musician, and a mom doing the best she can as she raises her babies, and they raise her.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want a gossipy celebrity memoir, with names dates and score settling, this isn't that book. What it is, is a beautiful memoir of what it's like to raise 4 unique human beings as a touring musician, trying to maintain some creative integrity and earn a living.
The stream of consciousness style can be a little bewildering, and sometime you wish she would have provided some concrete details for context. Mostly, it's lovely.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

There aren't very many people whose memoirs on motherhood I would read, never mind pre-order and be excited about. This book is just gorgeous. I really don't know what else to say. She could write about airplane fuel or tax codes or sewer lines and still produce the most captivating, artistic, immersive prose around.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a strange and wonderful person to read about. From the first time I heard one of her songs to now, they always spoke to me. But in reading this book I don't think my brain was open enough to really get all that she was putting into the songs. I am listening to the songs with a new ear now, paying closer attention and letting them get deeper into me.

[Willemijn. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just pure love.

[Melissa Mcmasters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, devastating, joyful, and hopeful. KH is one of a kind and this was another incredible read.

[Tana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. Music in word form...

[kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

everything kh does is magical!!!

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just to let you know, this book made me cry and boy did I ever cry.

Review will follow soon, but I must say, this is one of the BEST books I have read this year! Kristin did it again.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been a fan of Kristin for 30 years and thought I knew a lot about her, I was wrong. This book is written in Kristin's voice and is funny, emotional, sad, but ultimately life affirming.

[John vandenBerg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Between 4 and 5 stars.. she describes hear life on the road with her band while taking care of her children en seeing them grow up. occasionally all over the place but a unique writing style, describing a unique life, often funny and heartbreaking. You don’t have to be into alternative rock to be moved by this book

[Traci Timmons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hersh's quirky and intense writing style is paramount to helping us understand the life of a woman who's simultaneously a musician, a mother, someone who's dealing with trauma and illness, and everything else that life could possibly throw at you. This is one of the most authentic representations of motherhood I have ever read and made me more conscious of my own circumstances as a child-rearer. It helped me understand her music so much better and truly appreciate her willingness to not sell out and to do things her own, unique way. Dear Kristin, thank you for writing this.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was amazing. Almost a prose poem.

[Jonathan Norton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good, although tougher going than "Rat Girl". For more details see here:
https://discontinuednotes.com/2021/06...

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kristin Hersh is fascinating. This book - just like her music - won't appeal to everyone. It's poetry. And beautiful and messy and really, really lovely and honest.

[Mark Sexton · Rating 5 out of 5]

although it takes a bit of time to settle down stylistically, it evolves into a beautiful and devastating portrait of the precariousness of parenting alongside a career in music (and more)

[Danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Stunning, Wonderful, Tragic, Poetic, Beautiful, Dark, Funny, Unique, Enlightening, Spiral.

[Andie · Rating 5 out of 5]

American success is a weird party. The kind of party where people rip off their faces to reveal a monstrous emptiness. And somehow? It was still really, really boring.

Kristin Hersh's second memoir picks up shortly where the first left off: a young mother at 22, enduring a harrowing custody battle after her ex legally kidnaps their son. Each chapter is titled after one of her four sons, and the first chapter is the hardest one to read, both emotionally and technically. Dense, impressionistic stream-of-conscious prose conveys the trauma directly to the reader. It's worth perservering through, because the rest of the book becomes a bit more straightforward, although Hersh's characteristic tendency to communicate in metaphors and symbols never changes. It's balanced by her razor sharp wit and humor. When she says "Everyone knows a Grammy is an award for a marketing department," it doesn't come across as bitter, or even cynical--it's the relieved feeling of someone just saying what we all secretly think. I really love the way her brain works, her philosophy of living and her perspective on the value of art. And I admire her absolute commitment to authenticity and truth. Her music is deeply humanistic, and could not be more at odds with the entertainment industry. It's amazing she's had such a prolific artistic career, and I'm really grateful that she continues to make music on her own terms.

[Heather Durham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn’t a celebrity memoir, not a rock star’s memoir; this is the memoir of a brilliant artist reflecting on a life of, as the subtitle clearly states, music and motherhood. Though in this case, both music and motherhood are different sorts of animals than most any of us will ever experience, and for that alone this book is worth the read, regardless of whether we have any experience with or interest in either.

And yet it is so much more than that, with writing just as mind-altering, resonant, bizarre, hauntingly beautiful, and difficult to describe as her music, of which I’ve been a fan for thirty years despite how many times it’s seemed to transform into something completely new. Perhaps, what this book is really all about is what all the best memoirs are about: a human animal trying her best to live authentically, to experience traumas and pick herself up over and over again and even when they break her, to seek the light anyway. And, to write the same way. In reading it, I felt the sort of changed that happens when touching something… real. “You do start to wonder how anybody, any body, could live through this. You wake up, hungover from another twisting fall, and know that this is life. This is what living is. You’re a sweaty picture of life living itself. And look up: that cool sun.”

[Nikolaj Tange Lange · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anyone familiar with her songs knows that Kristin Hersh is a brilliant writer. She writes like a person for whom being on fire has become normal. She also has an amazing sense of humour.

But where her previous memoir Rat Girl was full of sharply crafted storytelling that made it work as a great novel, even for those with no relation to her music, this one feels more like a mix of diary and scrapbook. The writing is still amazing - she has a great skill for taking concrete things and events and making them seem like far-out metaphors - but I was often confused about wheres and whys, context and causality.

As a fan of her music and her lyrical universe, I still enjoyed the book. Though as a fan, I also often missed clearer time marks. Like when she writes about recording an album, I'd like to know which one she's talking about.

[Esther · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was equal parts wonderful and infuriating. As a big fan from early Throwing Muses days, I was intrigued to know more about her, as a mother to four boys, whilst being a musician, touring and how that all works. There were parts of this that illuminated that, I found these the most interesting. Other parts were more oblique and in the style of her song lyrics. But my god, this has floods, house fires, tour bus crashes, near drownings, ICU visits - so much chaos and lets see how this goes approach to life.

[Jim Levi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sections read aloud by Kristen at a recent gig were definitely more enjoyable than reading the whole thing. Like another reviewer, I almost gave up after 10 pages - but glad I persevered. So much semi-mystical hippie chaos - and so much incident and dodging of death - an extraordinary life.

[Saffron · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love Kristins' music and lyrics, you will love this book, part history, part anecdote, part dreamscape.

Certainly not glorifying the music business, but speaks of how if music is part of your soul there is no way you can keep it canned.