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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
reflective
slow-paced
I've been a fan of Lucinda's since my dad took me to see her play a solo acoustic show at Stuart's Opera House in Nelsonville, Ohio, in February 2011. It was a life-changing night--one of the most fun nights I've ever had with my dad, actually--so it seems fitting that one of the main currents grounding Williams's long-awaited memoir is her relationship with her father, the late poet laureate Miller Williams. She acknowledges that he was not a perfect man (and a reasonable reader should squirm when you learn that Lucinda's "Momma J" was her father's former student, just a few years older than Lucinda when she married Miller). Still, Lucinda allows her father to be a complicated man, acknowledging that despite their close, loving relationship, aspects of her childhood continue to haunt into her seventies, and her mother is not solely to blame.
There's a certain one-star review on here, and frankly, I can't imagine how someone who actually read this book could have arrived at the same conclusions. People are free to like/dislike books, but when a critique isn't actually based on the text, then a review becomes misleading (and frankly, this person seems to have some sort of "personal" issue with Lucinda). Let's break it down a little.
"Lucinda casts her mother as the villain in this story." It's clear--and Lucinda says it outright--that she was much closer to her father. For all his own faults (although I'm not sure how the term pseudointellectual applies to him, as this reviewer writes), it's a simple fact that he's the more stable parent, which is not the same thing as a perfect parent. In fact, I see Lucinda writing about her mother with a lot of compassion and empathy. She draws a stark comparison to intentionally point out just what a difference it makes when a child grows up in a home where creativity and artistic pursuits are encouraged. She discusses the horrific sexual abuse her mother endured (but never confided to Lucinda), and connects her mother's upbringing to her mental health issues, self-medication with alcohol, and emotional unavailability. Lucinda might not have understood this all at the time, but she has these insights now.
I don't see any resentment. In fact, toward the end of the book, she describes doing therapy, specifically a visualization exercise designed to help heal the inner child. Lucinda might be in her seventies--still impacted by childhood trauma--but she also recognizes the ways in which her mother was dealt an absolute shitty hand during a time when people didn't know enough about how to treat survivors of abuse who struggled with mental illness, especially when admitting sexual abuse would have been completely taboo in her mother's community.
From the way this reviewer writes, you'd almost expect this to be a take-down of her mother. The reality is very different; once we move beyond Lucinda's adolescence, her mother sort of haunts the rest of the pages, which feels apt. We move throughout time, to various places, to various love affairs, stopping to describe how her experiences shaped her songs and motivated her to craft her sound. I appreciated learning about the origins of some of my favorite songs, and her analysis of how women are labeled "difficult" or "crazy" while men get to be quirky geniuses.
Many will praise this book for its loose, conversational style. I was honestly a little disappointed that the poetry I expect to see in her writing was toned down. She's a great storyteller, but I was hoping for more lyrical writing. I suppose she wanted to create a contrast between her prose and her songs, but she's clearly a more comfortable, stronger songwriter--which, to be fair, is exactly what I'd expect.
I was disappointed to see her let Ryan Adams off the hook. Why go there at all if you're not going to make a strong statement? There are a couple of other instances where I found her stances on things to be slightly wishy-washy, or like they came off as a little . . . "well-meaning, 70-something, Progressive white lady," but there's nothing offensive in these pages, and the post-script reveals that she is still continuing to work to improve herself and understand where she came from.
I probably would not recommend this to people who aren't interested in her music, but it was a fast, enjoyable read.
There's a certain one-star review on here, and frankly, I can't imagine how someone who actually read this book could have arrived at the same conclusions. People are free to like/dislike books, but when a critique isn't actually based on the text, then a review becomes misleading (and frankly, this person seems to have some sort of "personal" issue with Lucinda). Let's break it down a little.
"Lucinda casts her mother as the villain in this story." It's clear--and Lucinda says it outright--that she was much closer to her father. For all his own faults (although I'm not sure how the term pseudointellectual applies to him, as this reviewer writes), it's a simple fact that he's the more stable parent, which is not the same thing as a perfect parent. In fact, I see Lucinda writing about her mother with a lot of compassion and empathy. She draws a stark comparison to intentionally point out just what a difference it makes when a child grows up in a home where creativity and artistic pursuits are encouraged. She discusses the horrific sexual abuse her mother endured (but never confided to Lucinda), and connects her mother's upbringing to her mental health issues, self-medication with alcohol, and emotional unavailability. Lucinda might not have understood this all at the time, but she has these insights now.
I don't see any resentment. In fact, toward the end of the book, she describes doing therapy, specifically a visualization exercise designed to help heal the inner child. Lucinda might be in her seventies--still impacted by childhood trauma--but she also recognizes the ways in which her mother was dealt an absolute shitty hand during a time when people didn't know enough about how to treat survivors of abuse who struggled with mental illness, especially when admitting sexual abuse would have been completely taboo in her mother's community.
From the way this reviewer writes, you'd almost expect this to be a take-down of her mother. The reality is very different; once we move beyond Lucinda's adolescence, her mother sort of haunts the rest of the pages, which feels apt. We move throughout time, to various places, to various love affairs, stopping to describe how her experiences shaped her songs and motivated her to craft her sound. I appreciated learning about the origins of some of my favorite songs, and her analysis of how women are labeled "difficult" or "crazy" while men get to be quirky geniuses.
Many will praise this book for its loose, conversational style. I was honestly a little disappointed that the poetry I expect to see in her writing was toned down. She's a great storyteller, but I was hoping for more lyrical writing. I suppose she wanted to create a contrast between her prose and her songs, but she's clearly a more comfortable, stronger songwriter--which, to be fair, is exactly what I'd expect.
I was disappointed to see her let Ryan Adams off the hook. Why go there at all if you're not going to make a strong statement? There are a couple of other instances where I found her stances on things to be slightly wishy-washy, or like they came off as a little . . . "well-meaning, 70-something, Progressive white lady," but there's nothing offensive in these pages, and the post-script reveals that she is still continuing to work to improve herself and understand where she came from.
I probably would not recommend this to people who aren't interested in her music, but it was a fast, enjoyable read.
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
I think I need to do this on the page instead of audio, I'm sorry to say
emotional
informative
tense
medium-paced
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
fast-paced
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
medium-paced
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
reflective
Definitely better listening to Lucinda tell her story than reading it yourself. She jumps around a bit, which is hard on the page but translates well when listening to the story. Also love her name dropping a thousand and two big names in music in their early (70’s, 80’s) days.