A vibrantly self-aware rock memoir buzzing with music, drugs, sisterhood, and blissful redemption.
The former bassist for the Go-Go’s chronicles her life before and after stardom.
In this surprisingly revealing memoir, Valentine recalls her childhood in Austin, Texas, raised by a single English expat mother who treated her like one of her druggy pals. She was an early experimenter with drugs and sex, and at age 12, she had to travel to California to have an abortion. A televised 1973 performance by Suzi Quatro inspired Valentine to dream of creating “a kickass band with a gang of like-minded girls and claim the life I wanted for myself.” In 1980, after gigs with several smaller bands and a few years playing guitar, Valentine met Charlotte Caffey, who founded the Go-Go’s in 1978, and she soon became the band’s replacement bassist. Fueled by a heady combination of cocaine and steely determination, Valentine jumped right in to play a series of sold-out early shows. The author draws from impeccably archived personal journals, band itineraries, and Filofax calendars to recall her time with the band from its inception to peak popularity. Her whirlwind path to fame was also littered with dysfunction, especially her drinking and rampant drug use, which coincided with skyrocketing record sales. A crushing band breakup in 1985—fueled by a “deep disconnect between the way we saw ourselves and the way we were presented to the public”—was as brutally humbling as her time in recovery. Valentine doesn’t skimp on the details of both the raucous partying and the many mistakes and failings that chastened her as a woman and a musician. Her candid narration is confident and consistently infused with personality, and a generous section of photographs illustrates her chronology. Despite the Go-Go’s’ rough edges and ups and downs, Valentine, now 61, acknowledges their unique all-female presence in rock history, and she concludes with updates on reunion tours and hope for the future. One of Kirkus and Rolling Stone’s Best Music Books of 2020.
A vibrantly self-aware rock memoir buzzing with music, drugs, sisterhood, and blissful redemption.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4773-1233-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Univ. of Texas
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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