In the non-stop stream of celebrity autobiographies available, Viv Albertine’s Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys is in a class by itself. Eschewing the standard form of chronicling events in long, wistful chapters of excess, Albertine goes for short entries of brilliance. The woman knows how to write, crafting observant and blunt bits of streetwise prose to describe the many mini-moments that make up this great book. The gangs all here; sex, drugs, rock and roll, but that’s only a part of it. After the days of punk ,The Slits, and notoriety had faded, Albertine tackled the next stage of her life, one in which she tried to have something approaching normalcy, only to find herself beset by a host of physical maladies which left her an empty and depressed shell of the renegade she once was. It’s in this second half of the book that the reader is jettisoned from appreciative fan to empathetic confidant, a powerful transformation to be certain. Throughout her tale, the author is relentlessly, brutally, and heartbreakingly honest. It’s easily the most intimate autobiography I’ve read, one in which the reader isn’t just consuming the sterile recounting of actions, but rather becoming enmeshed in a spellbinding, painful, and wry confessional. It’s essentially linear, but has some disjointed chapters that seem to have no purpose save to give you one more anecdote or life observation. I can best compare it to a long conversation with someone wherein the drinks or drugs flow, the talk rambles, and nobody is bored. Hers is a story as unique as she, but it’s her ability to unflinchingly express the raw innermost thoughts she was experiencing during those moments that make this book so special, so personal, and so endearing. The book is an easy read, told in two parts, mirroring the two very different eras of her life. By the end of the book, I had fallen so utterly and completely in love with this woman, that she’s ruined every other woman forever. Beneath the stunningly beautiful woman is an intelligent, thoughtful, courageous, and utterly absorbing person who I wish I had the privilege of truly calling my friend. This book will have to suffice. I was just entering grade school in the late seventies, but I was glued to my mom’s younger sisters who were in their early twenties and constantly bringing home the latest vinyl “imports” from the UK. They would pore over the liner notes, obsessively copying the lyrics into notebooks while the same records played over and over again. They worshipped The Clash and once got to meet them backstage on one of their US tours. For my part, I would rifle through their records for years to come and was always mesmerized by the album covers. The Slits' cover for Cut was emblazoned in my memory at an early age.Reading Viv Albertine’s memoir was like getting to step inside of those album covers. All of the records from that era are woven together through her (not always pretty) tales. Every “character” that she’s shuffling around London with ends up being a major player in the punk/post-punk scene (Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm Mclaren, Sid Vicious, Mick Jones, Joe Strummer, Don Letts, Chrissie Hynde, Adam Ant…). Still, what I loved most about this book was the second half where Viv Albertine finds herself struggling as a Hastings housewife and needs to pick herself up again after a serious illness, a marriage that leaves her unfulfilled, and the isolation of family life and motherhood. This is where she gets really good. The writing can be clumsy at times, but that doesn’t matter. Dwight Garner’s NYT review sums it up well: "Her book has an honest, lo-fi grace. If it were better written, it would be worse."
What do You think about Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. (2014)?
Brilliantly nostaglic and a kick up the arse for us "painfully dead".... go girl!
—Arc
Read a library copy and once finished I bought my own. That's how good it is.
—Clarinet1732
Inspiring and honest. A book that will stay with me for a long time
—adela
