Book review
With titles that tip the writers’ hands, the memoirs “Horror Stories” and “Blood” are anything but breezy musician memoirs. Liz Phair and Allison Moorer garner plenty of acclaim for their powerful voices and the songs they compose, but their writing voices, forthright, literary and provocative, deserve just as much attention.
In these stories, music takes a back seat to intriguing and tragic life events. These are tales of how life’s challenges have shaped two artists into brave, daring people.
“Horror Stories” might sound hyperbolic, but the title sets the tone for Phair’s collection of remembrances. Press for the book proved a bit misleading for those expecting only a litany of #MeToo moments. They appear and they are powerful: A collaborator/producer pushes for a sexual relationship, an anesthesiologist requests an autograph while Phair is giving birth and industry people expect her to do nearly anything to charm and assuage radio programmers.
“Horror” also refers to the mood the author creates in each of her 17 episodic chapters. Tales of being in New York City during a summer blackout and a traffic-stopping blizzard take on the gothic feel of more traditional entries in the horror genre.
Her music career offers abundant stories about her thorny path from indie rock provocateur to commercial pop outcast to genre-busting fringe musician. Surprisingly, little of that is addressed in the book beyond one indepth but rather ephemeral remembrance: Phair recounts a disastrous attempt to sing “Winter Wonderland” to prerecorded music on live network television. Perhaps she is satisfied that her songwriting forms its own autobiographical story. As she notes in the prologue, “Every time I recorded an album, I was writing my memoirs.”
Most surprising, and compelling, is how often Phair discusses her lessthan-exemplary behavior. She starts out with moments of regret over inaction – not helping an unconscious young woman on the floor of the bathroom at a college party and not intervening when she saw a parent physically abuse a child while at the beach with her own son.
She also describes mistakes she made: starting a relationship with someone she knows is already in one, brazenly having an affair while married and using someone’s attention to boost her ego. It is a risk to reveal yourself at some of your worst moments, but it certainly humanizes Phair and gives “Horror Stories” a sense of openness and intriguing moral ambiguity.
Moorer goes to even darker places than Phair with her memoir “Blood.” When she was only 14, Moorer’s father murdered her mother, then shot himself, in their front yard. The book’s title refers to both the blood spilled that morning as well as blood shared by family. In a semi-linear succession of brief narrative chapters and near-poetic reflections, Moorer sorts through what all that blood could mean, from her unshakable bond with her musician sister, Shelby Lynne, to the fearsome genetic legacy of her father.
In a testament to her power as a writer, this memoir refuses to sink under the weight of such terrible, troubling events. Things certainly get gritty and dark as her father’s drinking and desperate need to control her mother impede their entire family. But, throughout, music offers respites where the Moorers unite in song and where a girl desperately trying to be invisible feels tethered to her daddy’s creativity and songwriting aspirations.
Even though we know the awful outcome from the opening pages of the book, we come to learn that the author seeks a kind of peace as she delves into the most painful, disruptive incident in her life. To feel love and hope in the aftermath, it takes some clear-eyed, thoughtful gazing into the abyss. Moorer does that through her prose.
One section of “Blood” merits particular praise: The brief-but-dense reflection “What Happens When You Hit Your Daughter” should be required reading for anyone considering the impact of untreated addiction and other mental health struggles in families.
In words both blunt and artful, Moorer relates how trauma colors a life, how the grown daughter “will mistake admiration and infatuation and sometimes even abuse for love.” Still, symbolizing this memoir’s redemptive heart, Moorer continues that the injured daughter “will hurt more than you can imagine, but she will want to and even try to forgive you in approximately 287 different ways.”
While autobiography has subtly informed some of Moorer’s songwriting over the years, she has chosen to address her family tragedy more directly than ever with her most recent album, also titled “Blood.” The song features a bit less production sheen than her earlier work, befitting the often somber, reflective material. Her lyrics have never been sharper, utilizing different words than her book to transform hurt into healing. For those left feeling Moorer’s memoir needed more music, here it is.