Paradoxical Undressing

Earlier in the week I saw Kristin Hersh, lead singer of Throwing Muses, at the Book Festival. More by accident than by design I saw her on two nights, the first performing some of her songs and reading from her memoir Paradoxical Undressing, and the second reading again and discussing the book with Hannah McGill.

The memoir, based on her diaries, is of a single year of her life when she is eighteen. In that year she is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Throwing Muses sign with 4AD and make their first album, and Hersh becomes pregnant. The book is most fascinating when it explores Hersh's creative process - she hears songs, rather than creating them, and feels her best songs are those that she meddles with least - and most moving as it explores her journey through pregnancy and how she struggles to reconcile her protectiveness for her unborn child with an honest response to the 'evil' that she perceives in her music.

In her Book Festival session Hersh talked about the struggle to get the voice right for each section of the book, something she ultimately did very successfully. The voices of the young, vulnerable Hersh of the book's first season and the pregnant Hersh of the final season are particularly well realised. The relationships between the band members and their response to what they see as the absurdities of the music industry are also beautifully portrayed.

In person Hersh was a really engaging speaker and reader, something I didn't necessarily expect given the ambivalent feelings about performing that she portrays in her book. She had originally agreed to a biography but wrote the book herself because she could not bear the alternative of a stranger delving into her psyche and her past. She has clearly fallen in love with writing, with another two books, one a further memoir, currently on the go. On the evidence of this book they will be something to look forward to.

Edinburgh book festivals

Edinburgh in August inspires mixed feelings.  Lots of lovely things to do, see and listen to, but also lots of (I'm sure, lovely) people to get in the way as you try to go about the dull everyday demands of actually living in the city. It's hard not to get a bit grumpy at crowded buses, people walking very slowly when you're late for work and not being able to get a seat in your favourite cafe.

Still the good outweighs the bad and there are lots of great book things to do in Edinburgh in August.  The Edinburgh International Book Festival is the obvious one, and, despite losing a lot of my goodwill during four hours online trying to book tickets and even getting them in my basket only to see them disappear for ever, I'll be taking at trip or two down there.  While a lot of the well known authors are sold out, there's usually something interesting still available on the day and also some unticketed events.  One that's worth checking out is Unbound, a series of free evening events in the Book Festival's Spiegeltent.  The programme includes spoken word, music and psychic experiments...The Spiegeltent is also home to Story Shop, a showcase for new writers and new writing from Edinburgh, taking place at 4pm each day.

As well as the main Book Festival, the Edinburgh Book Fringe takes place at Word Power Books.  The Book Fringe is being launched by Alasdair Gray, author of Lanark.  Sadly I think real life (i.e. looking after my children) will get in the way of me going to the launch but there's lots of other interesting stuff going on there.

The Inky Fingers Minifest is also running from 8-13 August and features readings and performance poetry, an all day writing and performance marathon and FlashFictionMob appearing around the city.