Rate this book

Cat Power: A Good Woman (2009)

by Elizabeth Goodman(Favorite Author)

3.16 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0307396363 (ISBN13: 9780307396365)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Three Rivers Press

review 1: I felt very bad about reading this book in the beginning, since it’s an unauthorized biography. Having finished it now, I still feel bad, though the fact that the author didn’t do a very good job in my opinion (Chan should not spend a second worrying about this book, it’s not worth it) makes it a little bit better.The introduction instantly made me dislike Elizabeth Goodman. A pathetic and stubborn try to defend sticking her nose into someone’s personal life. Saying that Chan doesn’t know what she wants may be right in many situations, a letter from her lawyer trying to stop this project seems very clear though.Besides Goodman being way too biased, the book is also badly written. Very repetitive, and most importantly, full of contentual errors! I’m not an exper... moret on Chan, but even I recognized quite a few mistakes. It surely is very hard to pin down all the things Chan has done throughout her life, especially because she kind of likes to tell every story in five different versions, but if you decide to write a goddamn unauthorized biography about a musician, you should make sure you get all the facts right. So, I wouldn’t take this book as a reliable source for anything to be honest.Overall, it’s an interesting, light read about an undoubtedly great personality. (Oh here speaks the fangirl.)There are few things I love more than Chan Marshall and her music, she deserves all the happiness in this world.
review 2: I didn't realize how much I liked Cat Power until I read this book. I mean, my God, I must be interested in her to have finished this awful book. (To be fair, I did read it in an afternoon; it's that kind of book. As Nick Cave said when Elizabeth Goodman mentioned to him she was writing a book about her: "You're doing a book on Cat Power? An entire book? I mean, I could see a pamphlet.") So the two stars are for the tidbits of info I didn't know about her, which frankly wasn't that much since Goodman takes most of her information and all of her Chan Marshall quotes from other published interviews, since Chan wouldn't talk to her. And why should she? Goodman is a perfect example of the hackneyed, cliche-ridden pop culture writer that clogs music magazines and websites today. I don't expect everyone to be on the level of a Nick Tosches or even Richard Meltzer(!), and a little superficiality is to be expected when talking about indie rock, but she shows bad taste and her editors terrible judgment in allowing her to speculate at length on the mental health of Marshall and members of her family, and especially in including some fairly patronizing quotes about schizophrenics by some doctor she happens to know. Ew. The whole book is passive-aggressive in classic celebrity-worship-mingled-with-catty-bitterness mode, which is great for a Madonna or Princess Di bio, but Cat Power doesn't really rate that kind of fame and icon status, so it just comes off as petty or bitchy, like she's mad Chan wouldn't talk to her. I was really looking forward to finding out more about Moon Pix, which I still think is a weird masterpiece that found Chan Marshall punching above her weight, but there was very little info about it. So a 33 1/3 book on it is not out of the question.One more funny quote, this one from Matador's Gerard Cosloy, about Chan quitting music to enjoy domestic life with Bill Callahan: "In my experience, somebody saying 'I'm going to move wherever and buy a house with Bill Callahan,' that's not such a strange thing. Saying 'I'm going to move to wherever and have kids with Bill Callahan,' that's happened to people I know about five times."I will say the book as a whole and especially that kind of quote made me terribly nostalgic for '90s indie rock. But then I listened to Yo La Tengo and got it out of my system. I probably shouldn't have expected much from book, and I'm probably being so bitter and bitchy because I'm jealous someone like Goodman gets paid to write a book like this and be an editor at a national music magazine (the now web-only Blender, but still...). less

Download links for: Cat Power: A Good Woman

Advertising