As we close in my top 5 books of 2023, we revisit my rock ‘n roll memoir category, and we read the latest book of a favorites author.
#6 – The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar (2023)
Thrity Umrigar knows how to write powerful upheavals in characters’ lives. In her latest novel, Remy returns to the city of Bombay where he grew up both to look into a possible adoption for he and his American wife, and also to check on his estranged mother, whose health, he discovers, has taken a turn for the worse. Already there are two issues that Remy must deal with rife with potential family drama, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Family secrets, a harsh look at both Indian and American social systems, misogyny, pride, religion… all of these and more play a part in one man’s sudden need to reevaluate his life and nearly everything he has believed.
Umrigar creates a plethora of memorable characters, some who only appear in one brief scene. These people are flawed, complex people, who make mistakes, even with the best of intentions. In fact, one might say that is the ultimate theme of this powerful, yet ultimately humanist tale.
#7 – Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon (2015)
As merely a casual fan of Sonic Youth (big fan of “Kool Thing” ever since it was included in the Hal Hartley film, Simple Men), Kim Gordon’s memoir was perfect for my recent reading list of female rockers’ memoirs that Tracey Thorn’s books steered me toward. While not the accomplished writer that Thorn is, Gordon’s insight’s and life experiences as an artist and musician, part of the New York art scene in the late 70’s and 80’s, and half of one of post-punk’s most notable couple made for fascinating a compelling reading. Her writing style was straight-forward and engaging, and despite a cool exterior, the moments when she opened up to her strong feelings or challenging emotional conflicts were powerful.
Another enjoyable celebrity bio in the rock & roll vein. Martha Wainwright has a fascinating career and life in her own right, but as she mentions more than a few times in this book, she also comes from music royalty, with her mom, Kate McGarrigle, her dad, Loudon Wainwright III, and her older brother, Rufus Wainwright. Martha was always struggling to keep up creatively with her famous parents and brother, and arguably succeeded, even though she often felt inadequate. She also led a sometimes wild, rock & roll, partying lifestyle that makes for entertaining reading. She’s definitely a heart on her sleeve kind of woman, and doesn’t hold back. It was a quick, fun read, that doesn’t shy away from some of the darker and sadder part of life as well. Sometimes it reminded me of Sarah Polley’s recent book of essays, Run Toward the Danger, in the quirky, matter of fact way she told some disturbing stories. It certainly made me want to go back and listen to more of her music!
Brendan Shay Basham has constructed a novel exploring grief with such poetry, and such visceral imagery, that it’s hard to shake. Damien is struggling with the loss of his younger brother Kai, who was swept away by a river and drowned. Damien’s odyssey takes him from the Pacific Northwest, through the dessert, to an isolated fishing town under the iron-rule of a family of brujas (witches.) As his journey progresses, he is slowly being transformed into a fish.
Melissa Scott creates a complex world where humanity is divided into Company, Union, and Traveller, and computer programs are anthropomorphized as animal and plantforms. The Internet has grown to include something called the Wild Net were there programs run wild and free, possibly even threatening to grow into something so monstrous as to destroy all other programs in the system. In this universe a small group of disparate characters find themselves thrown together to solve a mystery that blossoms into something bigger than they imagine. Scott’s imagination and commitment to racial and sexual diversity was ahead of its time in 90’s science fiction, and her imagination was taking early technological advances in software and web work to unimaginable heights.
I’m not someone who is in the habit of reading big best-sellers, so I’m coming to this novel late, a few years after reading and enjoying Claire Messud’s subsequent novel, The Woman Upstairs. The talented writer weaves together the lives of three college friends who have all gone on to the big city of New York to make their marks on the world. Danielle hails from Ohio, and lives in a small Village studio apartment while struggling as a documentary film producer. Marina lives a highly privileged life, biding time while she writes her book about children’s clothing. She is part of the wealthy and esteemed Thwaite family, the patriarch of which is either an insightful arbiter of culture, or a blowhard with little left to say, depending on who you ask. Finally, their friend Julius, once a well-known, and pointed arts critic, who is now finding he needs something more in his life than the bed-hopping, partying lifestyle for which he is known. One additional key character, Frederick, or Bootie, as his mother calls him, is Marina Thwaite’s cousin from the midwest, who in brilliant, socially clueless. After dropping out of college because of his perceived indignation around the educational system, he finds himself living with his wealthy relatives in New York while he plans his future.
Stephen McCauley writes engaging novels revolving around quirky, but all-too human characters, often in unconventional families. While his latest and eighth novel, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble, and his first since 2018 is well-written and entertaining, it does feel a bit like well-trodden ground. There’s something very familiar about the structure, and the dilemmas facing the characters. For some readers, this may feel comforting, like a favorite, well-worn bathrobe on a chilly winter night, and while there was some element of that for me, I also was looking for something a little more fresh, and reading this felt a little fomulaic. Still, I did tear up a bit in places, and chuckled while reading, so definitely a worthy addition to his bibliography.
An engrossing read that packs three distinct storylines into one novel fairly successfully. Fuller starts with virulent pandemic sweeping the world, that is a bit more apocalyptic than what we all recently endured, but is similar enough to bring back some pretty tense memories. Neffy is a marine biologist who volunteers for a dangerous study where she will be injected with the virus and a possible vaccine along with a handful of other test subjects. Just as she undergoes the first phase of the trial, the world goes to hell and when she recovers she finds herself trapped in the hospital with four other subjects.
#15 – Boys in the Trees: a Memoir, by Carly Simon (2015)
#14 – Chapter and Verse: New Order, Joy Division and Me, by Bernard Sumner (2015)