Girl in a Band (10th Anniversary Edition) - by Kim Gordon (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

*THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*

**Updated and expanded with new material from the author and new foreword from Rachel Kushner**

For many, Kim Gordon is the epitome of cool: vocalist, bassist/guitarist and founding member of Sonic Youth--one of the most successful bands to emerge from the post-punk New York scene--despite being famously reserved.

Ten years ago, Gordon distilled that coolness into her groundbreaking memoir, Girl in a Band, speaking openly about her life. From her childhood in the sunbaked suburbs of Southern California, growing up with a schizophrenic sibling, to New York's downtown art and music scene in the halcyon days of the 80s and 90s and creating Sonic Youth--a band that would go on to pave the way for acts like Nirvana and inspire the Riot Grrrl generation. Girl in a Band is an edgy and evocative portrait of a life in art.

A decade on, Gordon's exploration of the artists, musicians, and writers who influenced her, and of the relationship that defined her life for so long, remains a deeply intimate self-portrait of a woman who became an icon, and whose stature continues to evolve in and grow. With a new foreword by Rachel Kushner and new chapter from Kim herself ruminating on her career as a solo artist and her two 2025 Grammy nominations, her connection to touring after nearly forty years, and the death of her brother Keller.

Review Quotes

"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
You may know Kim Gordon as the bass player and singer of Sonic Youth, one of rock's all-time most important bands.They pushed boundaries, challenged audiences, and gained the respect of critics, fans, and peers alike. She's channeled this same ethos in her current musical act, Body/Head, a down-to-earth fashionista, and as a visual artist. Add excellent author to that 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. Born a California girl, she was born into a family with two emotionally reclusive parents and an emotionally manipulative brother. She struggled to find herself within that environment while growing up in the Manson family valley. She took the pieces she liked with her to Toronto and New York and made herself whole, working in the art world and making music. As a female in a male-dominated music industry, she knows a thing or two about being a strong woman in the public eye. While being introspective herself, she admired Madonna's feminist approach early in her career. Gordon applauds how she took control of her sexuality for self-empowerment. She acknowledges and laments that times have changed in that regard with pop culture feminism's current archetype being someone like Lana Del Rey, someone she sees as having no authenticity and who's attitude makes for a poor role model. When Gordon's marriage to Sonic Youth bandmate Thurston Moore, once viewed as the paragon model for how to survive in music and in love, dissolved, so went the group. A brief statement was drafted confirming the break-ups which lead to rampant speculation during the postmortem. She not only doesn't shy away from talking about it but addresses it full-on. Her recounting reflects a woman with a deep hurt but without a hint of vindictive self-righteousness, rather, compassion if not full comprehension. Girl in a Band is more than a memoir, though it is one of the most riveting music biographies ever penned. As she writes when describing her arrival to New York, "It's hard to write about a love story with a broken heart", it is ultimately a book about love. The love of a man, a child, and a family. The love of art and music. The equal and opposite love for life in two cities. Betrayals and disappointments have littered Kim Gordon's life the same as all of us. Even damaged, it is apparent that her capacity for love is indomitable, if not her ability to forgive. She's lived a life of artistic diversity and integrity as well as regular reinvention and she's ready for her next chapter. - Examiner.com
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
"With GIRL IN A BAND, Gordon is back in charge, telling an unconventional story of her own creation. This book is not a garden-variety rock memoir. Sure, there are tour diaries and scenes from pre-Giuliani New York, before the city got all clean and rich. But it's also a strange and lovely book about a woman finding and losing herself onstage and off and crafting a complicated creative life when none of the molds quite fit." - Los Angeles Times Book Review
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
"From beginning to end, the icon chronicles the evolution of music, art, and herself, set in and out of an ever-changing New York." - Interview
"Rock n' roll icon Kim Gordon brings her distinct voice to the literary world with her new memoir 'Girl in a Band'. She opens up about her childhood, forming Sonic Youth and juggling motherhood and a career. The highlight for me was when she recounts her memories of Sonic Youth album by album. It's a treat to read about the life of such an amazing and talented artist." - Powell's Books
"Kim Gordon writes like she's painting: places and people become layered to utterly specific, gripping depths and moods, such that the reader feels the need to reach out, to hold the page up and consider it like a piece of visual art. Not to mention, Kim's book is one of the bravest, most unapologetic, and beautiful personal histories I've read in a long time. No character in the cast of her life, including herself, is spared her (incredibly satisfying) mirror. I found particularly compelling her treatment of the end of her long relationship with her ex-husband and former bandmate Thurston Moore. Compelling to the extent that it's addressed head-on, so as to say "Yes: it happened. But enough of that for now," allowing readers to become fully engulfed by the alternating warm and cool tones of Kim's young life in California, Hawaii, and Hong Kong; by the dark and bright spaces surrounding the constellation of her family; by Kim's immersion into music as a lifestyle, a profession, and an outlet. While I approached "Girl in a Band" as a fan of Sonic Youth, hoping for a peek behind the curtain of a personal favorite era in music, I was left with an arresting literary experience." - The Strand
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. - Booklist
An intriguing memoir. . . [Gordon's] unique sensibility never fades. - Publishers Weekly