From Publishers Weekly
Catapulted into the limelight after her song about an abused child, "Luka," hit the airwaves in 1987, Suzanne Vega has become the minimalist poet of popular music. With five albums and a recent greatest hits collection behind her, the artist has put together a medley of writings spanning a 30-year period that provide an engaging counterpoint to her spare lyrics, many of them also reprinted here. Vega has chosen to organize the material thematically rather than chronologically, a tactic highlighting the motifs she has pursued since childhood: solitude, desire, war and "the stuff that you knew too early that you shouldn't have known." Like her music, Vega's prose is studded with precise images that prove her a keen observer of the world around her: for instance, in "Plain," she writes, "I am nothing more/ Than grain in the wood/ And rust on steel./ A town you went through once/ Then forgot./ A girl on a step." While this cascade of images is Vega's signature style, the collection's longer pieces flesh out the experiences that inspired her lyrics: selections from Vega's journal, an interview conducted by Leonard Cohen and the tender "Hunger Strike," which shows a young woman dealing with lost love by abusing her body. Although this volume will speak strongest to longtime fans of Vega's music, there is a poignant mixture of toughness and fragility in Vega's work that will resonate even with readers who've never heard her sing. Major ad/promo.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This collection of song lyrics, poems, essays, and personal anecdotes may unveil Vega's unique artistry for the first time to those who are unfamiliar with her music. But those who have long been aware of her musical gifts will not find any surprises here. Vega still delivers the same passion for diminutive detail in the same simple way, intermingled with the same grace. Engaging in themes that encompass childhood innocence, adulthood insecurities, and everything in between, Vega unreservedly speaks of some of the most intimate moments of her life. Although in some cases she selflessly unfolds hitherto unseen layers of her personality, she still keeps that familiar distance?as if she were allowing the reader to get closer only as long as her shelter is unthreatened. With this delicate yet broad-minded collection, Vega proves that her lyrics can be flowingly transformed into poetry that conveys both thoughtfulness and wit. Strongly recommended for large music and poetry collections.
-?Mirela Roncevic, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
...Vega proves adept at spotting uncommon details and conveying them in unfettered prose. -- Entertainment Weekly, Clarissa Cruz
About the Author
Suzanne Vega is an award-winning songwriter and recording/performing artist who has performed on many of the world's great stages, including New York's Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, and London's Royal Albert Hall. Her recordings have sold in excess of six million copies worldwide.
