The two-time Grammy-nominated
singer-songwriter behind the groundbreaking album Exile in Guyville traces
her life and career in a genre-bending memoir in stories about the pivotal
moments that haunt her.
When Liz Phair shook things up with her musical debut, Exile in Guyville—making
her as much a cultural figure as a feminist pioneer and rock star—her raw
candor, uncompromising authenticity, and deft storytelling inspired a legion of
critics, songwriters, musicians, and fans alike.
Now, like a Gen X Patti Smith,
Liz Phair reflects on the path she has taken in these piercing essays that
reveal the indelible memories that have stayed with her.
For Phair, horror is in the eye of the beholder—in the often unrecognized
universal experiences of daily pain, guilt, and fear that make up our humanity.
Illuminating despair with hope and consolation, tempering it all with her
signature wit, Horror Stories is immersive, taking readers inside the
most intimate junctures of Phair’s life, from facing her own bad behavior and
the repercussions of betraying her fundamental values, to watching her beloved
grandmother inevitably fade, to undergoing the beauty of childbirth while being
hit up for an autograph by the anesthesiologist.
Horror Stories is a literary accomplishment that reads like the
confessions of a friend.
It gathers up all of our isolated shames and draws
them out into the light, uniting us in our shared imperfection, our uncertainty
and our cowardice, smashing the stigma of not being in control.
But most
importantly, the uncompromising precision and candor of Horror
Stories transforms these deeply personal experiences into tales about each
and every one of us.