Juliana: The Annotated Bibliography
Juliana is out, which means-- yes-- I am releasing a reading list for this album. Consider this a bibliography of sorts, or maybe a list of summer reads you'll take up after listening to this record. They're all very good, I wouldn't recommend a dud to anyone. Below the list, I'm also going to write a little review, so you know why it interested me.
Magnificent Rebel: Nancy Cunard in Jazz Age Paris by Anne de Courcy
Nancy's biography does not linger on her unfortunate end, but it doesn't pull punches. She has her pathetic moments, her ambitious moments too, and an overall air of a rebel without a cause. Anne de Courcy's biography is salty and correct, I've never felt more seen or understood by a biographer’s narrative methodology. Nancy is painted as both a victim of her circumstances and a total bitch who abuses her romantic partners. de Courcy also attacks Gertrude Stein, which is always warranted. It must be hard for you, Anne, to have all the right opinions all the time. High rec as a summer read.
As It Turns Out by Alice Sedgewick Wohl
Wohl's memoir is stunning because Alice is honest with her relationship with her sister, famous it-girl Edie Sedgewick. She expresses doubt at the sexual assault allegations. She expresses suspicion at Edie's finances. But overall, her admiration for her sister's influence in the world informs Wohl's relationship with her own memory of being unremarkable. What I find lovely about this is that, from a sister point of view, I think Wohl is the only person who could humanize Edie's legacy not as a doomed beautiful dead girl, but as a flighty younger sister who struggled to express herself beyond the influence of the famous people around her. This memoir informed the tension between “being the object” and “being the writer” that I sought to address in Juliana. This memoir was a fascinating read, super high rec for any time.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear
Another memoir! I was feeling insane, and this book was a major source of inspiration, especially with its relationship to New York City. McClear talks about the isolation of living in a city where you desperately want to do something, like costume design, but you're forced to do something else. I really enjoyed how McClear paints each of her colleagues with an empathetic brush, where you not only get the sad "working class" narrative that people love to exploit, but you get their humor, their opinions, and ultimately the wonder that McClear expresses when they move on from peep shows. When McClear leaves, it has an identical wistful, ephemeral quality of her just disappearing, and I adored it.
The Lonely City by Olivia Laing
Another NYC memoir, although I think this is the most masterful nonfiction I've read for years now. Some memoirists wish they could do what Laing accomplishes. She meditates on half a dozen city artists, all with different relationships to technology and loneliness, while she expresses her own wretched lonely experience. An understated aspect of this memoir is profound heartbreak, not only from a failed relationship but from the disconnect someone feels when they live in a glamorous city in which they can't participate. This book singlehandedly encouraged me to finish Juliana during a time when I basically gave up because I hated it. And I wish I could buy copies of this book and just hand them out. Highest rec on this high rec list.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
In the promo material, you can see me "reading" this book. My copy came from a colleague at work who knew I would love it despite knowing very little about my reading choices. Can't believe I got attacked like this. Madame Bovary is about a woman who marries into a middle class name but desires riches and taste and excitement. It dovetails with a lot of Juliana's material. Emma spends the majority of the book dreaming about a life she wants, constructing her fantasies in real life while the people around her consider it gauche or dangerous. What really made this book was Emma's characterization as both spoiled and sympathetic. It was the last book I read as I finished the record, and I felt soothed by Flaubert’s handling of maladaptive daydreaming, as if for hundreds of years humans have been encircling the same set of emotional circumstances under different social orders. Again, high rec for the summer.
I am a heavy reader, and I have very attuned taste in reading material, but I also recognize that even a terrible read can bring something forward. My worry, as I was writing Juliana, is that I wasn’t making the album that existed in my mind. But as I listen back, I have the oddest feeling of not recognizing my own writing or voice. The disconnect seems to be rooted in the fact that this album is not autobiographical. It’s hobbled together by the memoirs and biographies and pseudobiographies I had immersed myself in all year. What I feel proud of is that by venturing out into other people’s lives, I found something better than I envisioned. Enheard? En— oh, whatever.
