Blood

by Allison Moorer

Overview

The Grammy- and Academy Award- nominated singer-songwriter's haunting, lyrical memoir, sharing the story of an unthinkable act of violence and ultimate healing through art

1986, Mobile, Alabama. A fourteen-year-old girl is awakened by the unmistakable sound of gunfire. On the front lawn, her father has shot and killed her mother before turning the gun on himself. Allison Moorer would grow up to be an award-winning musician, with her songs likened to "a Southern accent: eight miles an hour, deliberate, and very dangerous to underestimate" (Rolling Stone). Now, Allison turns her lyrical storytelling powers to recount the events leading up to the moment that forever altered her own life and that of her older sister, Shelby, with whom she shares an unbreakable bond. Gorgeously written, Blood delves into the meaning of inheritance and destiny, shame and trauma -- and how it is possible to carve out a safe place in the world despite it all.

With a foreword by Grammy winner Shelby Lynne, Blood is a familial Just Kids that reads like an intimate journal -- vivid, haunting, and ultimately life-affirming.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/25/2019
Label:	Autotelic Records
UPC:	0644216976195
Rank:	118972

Tracks

1. Weather
2. Cold Cold Earth
3. Nightlight
4. The Rock and the Hill
5. I'm the One to Blame
6. Set My Soul Free
7. The Ties That Bind
8. All I Wanted (Thanks Anyway)
9. Blood
10. Heal

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Allison Moorer   Primary Artist,Vocals (Background),Guitar (Acoustic),Drums (Bass),Tambourine,Vocals,Piano
Luke Reynolds   Loops
Steve Patrick   Trumpet
Tammy Rogers   Fiddle
Evan Hutchings   Drums
Kenny Greenberg   Bass,Guitar (Acoustic),Guitar (Electric)

Technical Credits

Justin Neibank   Mixing
Jim DeMain   Mastering
Jeff Linsenmaier   Programming
Vernon Franklin Moorer   Composer
Shelby Lynne   Composer
Kenny Greenberg   Producer,Engineer,Mixing
Allison Moorer   Composer
Tony Castle   Editing
Mike McCarthy   Engineer
Mike Walter   Engineer
Mills Logan   Engineer,Mixing
Mary Gauthier   Composer

Editorial Reviews

"Beautiful, heart-wrenching . . . Moorer's masterful, comforting storytelling may serve as solace for those who've faced abuse, a signal for those in it to get out, and an eye-opener for others."
—Publishers Weekly starred review

"Moorer's memoir is full of backstory-memories, current notes and thoughts, and well-described metaphors that come together fluidly, all told with grit and lyrical prose. ...Her writing is beautiful and gripping and will stop readers in their tracks...a must-read."
—Booklist starred review

"There is much wisdom in her experience as well as in her reflections on what she has read and heard....Much different from most musicians' memoirs and of much interest to all who wrestle to understand tragedies of their own."
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Allison Moorer is known for songs of ragged, poetic honesty — and for the emotional clarity of her country western ballads. Her debut memoir exhibits these qualities and more."
—LitHub, one of the most anticipated books of 2019

"There are few writers — few people, in fact — who could examine with such profound bravery the immense suffering and trauma in her story, infuse it with a lyrical sense of timelessness, and make us feel grateful for the telling. Blood is both unflinching and redemptive: a song of loss and courage."
—Rosanne Cash

"Like her songwriting, Moorer's prose is steeped in a rich sense of place, vivid characterization, and a story you will never forget. Not since Joan Didion's Blue Nights has grief been explored with so much beauty and complexity."
—Silas House, author of Southernmost

"Grit and grace, beauty and pain, on every wise page. Allison Moorer has given us a memoir as bloody, rich, and complex as red Alabama clay."
—Alice Randall, author of The Wind Done Gone

"Blood reveals the complicated mess of love and hurt that all too many readers will recognize. Moorer herself survived the unimaginable, and her poetic testimony should summon vigorous new attention to the public-health crisis that is male anger."
—Sarah Smarsh, author of Heartland

"Blood is the most vulnerable work you're likely to read for quite some time."
—Rick Bass, author of For a Little While

"[A] harrowing debut."—Elle

"Her voice rings with equal parts defiance and vulnerability."
—Blender

"[Moorer's] written this book like a symphony. It is expansive, and its three parts feel like movements. Moorer fills them with prose that has the sharp honesty of the greatest songwriters."
—The Bitter Southerner

"Written with brave, clear-eyed compassion for all involved, Blood is an astonishing and moving meditation on family inheritance and acceptance. Despite her family's singularly tragic circumstances, Blood tells a universal story about the things our parents pass down to us — what we learn to be grateful for, what we release ourselves from, and what we simply leave alone."
—Jennifer Palmieri, author of Dear Madame President

From the Publisher

★ 2019-08-18
Country music singer Moorer recounts a scarifying, life-defining event: the murder-suicide of her parents.

"Someone can take himself out, fine, but they leave behind those who love them with a never-ending list of questions and a shadow hanging over everything, like a dark triptych in the middle of the room." So writes Moorer, who, like her sister, fellow country singer Shelby Lynne, has been living for more than 30 years with the memory of the gunshots by which her father killed her mother and then turned the gun on himself. Moorer is her own Rashomon, exploring that terrible event from every possible side, examining the living, recalling the words of the dead, concluding that, given the abuse and alcohol that flowed through the relationship, the end seemed inevitable. The dark triptych of which she writes represents a hazy unknowability, the list of questions keys that can never be recovered since the answers can never come. Affecting in its cleareyed depiction of the lives that are shattered all around the immediate victims, including her then-14-year-old self, Moorer's account examines the lingering effects—e.g., mistrust and a habit of leaving relationships before they're over. "Let me store resentments like I'm canning vegetables for the winter" she writes, "so I'll slowly develop a deep, smoldering hatred in return for my deep disappointment." Yet she tried to think of herself in terms other than the daughter of a murderer, the daughter of a murder victim. There is much wisdom in her experience as well as in her reflections on what she has read and heard, as with her note that one great step forward is to "give up hope for a better past." That her past is worse than most has posed countless challenges, it's evident in these pages, but Moorer confronts it with an unblinking honesty that is sometimes long on self-doubt and short on comfort.

Much different from most musicians' memoirs and of much interest to all who wrestle to understand tragedies of their own.

Kirkus Reviews