Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir

Carrie Brownstein

Oct 2015 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

From the guitarist of the pioneering band Sleater-Kinney, the book Kim Gordon says "everyone has been waiting for" and a New York Times Notable Book of 2015-- a candid, funny, and deeply personal look at making a life--and finding yourself--in music.

Before Carrie Brownstein became a music icon, she was a young girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest just as it was becoming the setting for one the most important movements in rock history. Seeking a sense of home and identity, she would discover both while moving from spectator to creator in experiencing the power and mystery of a live performance. With Sleater-Kinney, Brownstein and her bandmates rose to prominence in the burgeoning underground feminist punk-rock movement that would define music and pop culture in the 1990s. They would be cited as “America’s best rock band” by legendary music critic Greil Marcus for their defiant, exuberant brand of punk that resisted labels and limitations, and redefined notions of gender in rock.
 
HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL is an intimate and revealing narrative of her escape from a turbulent family life into a world where music was the means toward self-invention, community, and rescue. Along the way, Brownstein chronicles the excitement and contradictions within the era’s flourishing and fiercely independent music subculture, including experiences that sowed the seeds for the observational satire of the popular television series Portlandia years later.
 
With deft, lucid prose Brownstein proves herself as formidable on the page as on the stage. Accessibly raw, honest and heartfelt, this book captures the experience of being a young woman, a born performer and an outsider, and ultimately finding one’s true calling through hard work, courage and the intoxicating power of rock and roll.

Ratings and reviews

It took me a long time to finish this book, not because it isn't good but I just couldn't relate and don't understand a lot of things abt the music, life in US, etc. Almost at the end when the panic attack happened, I started to not just 'read' but also felt how it was. Unfortunately there were not much left till the epilogue. I read the book as #oursharedshelf book pick back on July/Aug 2016, quite late. I heard they are going to make a TV adaptation.

Beautifully written and heartfelt. She really makes you feel like you were "there". I would recommend this book to anyone even if they didn't know sleather kinney

Love Carrie and I love this book. I got to meet her several times in Olympia in the early 90s so it was interesting to see how much of her life has evolved.

About the author

Carrie Brownstein is a musician, writer and actor who first became widely known as the guitarist and vocalist of the band Sleater-Kinney and later as a creator, writer and co-star of the Emmy-nominated, Peabody Award winning television show Portlandia. Brownstein's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Believer, Slate, and numerous anthologies on music and culture. She lives in Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles.