"Kim Gordon writes the way she plays. Fiercely, honestly, and with the creative abandon of a singular artist." - AMY POEHLER, actor, producer, writer
"I've always admired Kim Gordon. She is cool, smart, and dignified. Girl in a Band is a fascinating and honest memoir full of raw emotion and insight." - SOFIA COPPOLA, filmmaker
"The best thing one of your heroes can do is make you feel heroic yourself. Kim Gordon has done just that in her memoir; it is full of beauty and power, inspiration, kindness, boldness and hope." - CARRIE BROWNSTEIN, writer, actor, musician CARRIE BROWNSTEIN, writer, actor, musician
"After all the gifts Kim Gordon has given the world over the past few decades-in art, in music, in performance, in fashion, in feminism-now she gives us this candid, absorbing, open-hearted work of personal and cultural history. Girl in a Band a treasure not only because of the detailed account it offers of a vital sound, scene, and time, but also because it is illuminated throughout by the light of Gordon's humanity, with all its originality and vulnerability." - MAGGIE NELSON, author of The Art of Cruelty
"As part of Sonic Youth, Kim Gordon initiated a generation into mind-torquing new forms of aural beauty and an intimidating, exhilarating sense of cool. Now, from her throne at the center of America's artistic scene comes her charmed, anguished, ridiculously fascinating life story, studded with the likes of Kurt Cobain, Mike Kelly, and Johnny Thunders, told in a voice of sustained guilelessness, serious intelligence, and bedrock emotional sanity. Be assured: we chose our rock gods well!" - JON RAYMOND, novelist and screenwriter
"Written with the same cool passion she brings to her lyrics, Gordon delivers a generous look at life inside the punk whirlwind." - Kirkus Reviews
For 30 years, Kim Gordon was a Girl in a Band: Sonic Youth, the seminal alternative rock, postpunk New York group she formed in 1981 with her then-boyfriend, later husband, Thurston Moore. Until the band-and their marriage-broke up in 2011, the author sang and played bass, made art, and raised a daughter. Gordon's life story, as she tells it here, may not have been nonstop bohemian glamour, but with her deadpan and often very funny running narrative, she doesn't make it sound too shabby either. The book is more panoramic than reflective: while the performer's thoughts on various projects, artistic decisions, balancing motherhood with touring, and the ever-present male gaze are provocative, her strength lies in telling a solid art-world yarn. There's also something of an elegiac tone throughout: for the author's marriage and her band, for a period in art and music that was ripe with possibilities-and perhaps especially for a vanished Manhattan. VERDICT Gordon's career as a musician, artist, critic, performer, producer, and designer spanned the last truly hip era of downtown New York. The names and the nostalgia-for those who remember or who wish they did-are well worth the price of admission. - Library Journal
"heartbreaking, raw, articulate, and inspiring." - Bust Magazine
"Add excellent author to Kim Gordon's résumé. Girl in a Band is told in short story form, each one an answer to a question you have always to know but never felt you had the right to ask. It feels like a series of private phone conversations Gordon is having that eavesdrop on. . . . Girl in a Band is more than a memoir, though it is one of the most riveting music biographies ever penned.." - Examiner.com
Everybody loves Kim Gordon. So it's pretty much my bet that everybody will be hanging on the words of anyone who's read her forthcoming memoir (which is reportedly phenomenal). [Ed. note: It's even better than you're probably expecting.] - Flavorwire