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.
- Jojo Wrinkles
