‘Damaged People’ and the Inescapability of Intergenerational Trauma
Joe McGinniss, Jr.’s memoir, Damaged People takes on intergenerational trauma, familial curses, and true crime’s tenacious hold on art.
memoir
Lemonheads’ Evan Dando Authors His Addictive Hooks
Lemonhead Evan Dando’s long-awaited memoir is an engaging, sometimes harrowing, trip through the 1990s alternative rock boom.
John Patrick Higgins’ Spinal Fantasy
Humor writer John Patrick Higgins talks about the fading art of painful self-deprecation and other sore subjects in his new “Misery Memoir”, Spine.
Shon Faye Embraces Love’s Contradictions
In the clear-eyed and sophisticated memoir Love In Exile, British journalist Shon Faye mines from her life and the past to interrogate why we’re denied, or we deny, love.
‘The Story of ABBA’ Neglects to Tell the Story of ABBA
In a typical biography, I’d permit ten pages that are completely unrelated to the subject. The Story of ABBA has about 100 such pages.
Gang of Four Memoir Is Full of Spit and Vinegar
Jon King’s Gang of Four memoir To Hell With Poverty! is full of spit and vinegar, a bit tetchy with a sly sense of humor.
Lollapalooza Is an Artifact That Will Never Be Replicated
Lollapalooza dragged alternative culture into the sunlight, created a safe space with Mötley Crüe-level hedonism, and became an artifact that will never be replicated.
Joni Mitchell Inspires and Unsettles a Memoirist’s Life
Reverence for Joni Mitchell is clear in Paul Lisicky’s memoir. So, too, is an artistic courage that both inspires and unsettles him.
10 Brilliant Music Books on the Art & Industry
From rock to hip-hop to country to punk to emo, here’s a list of superb music books to deepen the education for you or the music lover in your life.
The Best Books of 2024
PopMatters Best Books of 2024 include a broad range of nonfiction, many books on music, short fiction, a novel that turns a Mark Twain classic inside out, and much more.
You Could Have Written Alex Van Halen’s ‘Brothers’
Alex Van Halen’s Brothers is infuriating for fans of Eddie Van Halen because we’ve read all this before. We don’t need this high school term paper of a memoir.
What Is the Goal of Andrea Warner’s ‘We Oughta Know’?
Andrea Warner purportedly wants to do right by popular Canadian women musicians in her book of revisionist album reviews, We Oughta Know.