Society's Child: My Autobiography

by Janis Ian, Janis Ian (Read by)

Overview

Winner of the 2013 Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album

Janis Ian was catapulted into the spotlight in 1966 at age fifteen, when her soul-wrenching song about an interracial relationship, “Society’s Child,” became a hit. The song climbed the charts despite the fact that many radio stations across the country refused to play it because of its controversial subject matter. But this was only the beginning of a long and illustrious career. Society’s Child is Ian’s fascinating personal account of her more than forty years in the music business.

In 1975, Ian’s legendary “At Seventeen” earned two Grammy Awards and five nominations. Her next two albums brought her worldwide platinum hits. But after seven albums in as many years, she made a conscious decision to walk away from the music business and devote herself to writing. During this period, she struggled through a difficult marriage that ended with her then husband’s attempt to destroy her, and a sudden illness that very nearly cost her her life. The hiatus from music lasted for close to a decade until, in 1993, Ian returned with the release of the Grammy-nominated Breaking Silence, and she has been making unforgettable music ever since. In Society’s Child, she provides a relentlessly honest account of the successes and failures, the hopes and dreams, of an extraordinary life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491514559
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	04/22/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 6.80(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Janis Ian is a Grammy Award–winning songwriter, singer, and author. She lives in Nashville with her partner of two decades.

Table of Contents

Introduction     xi
Prologue     xiii
Hair of Spun Gold     1
God & the FBI     20
Silly Habits     36
Society's Child     52
Haven's I Got Eyes     82
Jesse     108
Stars     118
This Train Still Runs     141
At Seventeen     159
Love Is Blind     173
Fly Too High     189
Arms Around My Life     203
His Hands     224
When Angels Cry     236
My Tennessee Hills     249
Stolen Fire     263
Days Like These     283
Through the Years     305
I Hear You Sing Again     318
Joy     333
"My Autobiography"     347
Index     351

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Society’s Child is the hugely readable autobiography of an artist who has lived through success and crushing hardship but knows that ‘you can’t sing and cry at the same time.’ Sing on!”
—O, The Oprah Magazine

“Painfully candid . . . hard to put down.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“A juicily entertaining look at an unusual life in show business."Downbeat yet oddly rollicking and compulsively readable.”
—Kirkus Reviews

"Deftly written, the life experiences described by Janis Ian in this engaging memoir gives us a peek into the anatomy of a brilliant songwriter'
—Joan Baez

"One of life's greatest pleasures is a book that you simply can't put down—one that transports you from start to finish as it elevates, enlightens, engages and entertains. Janis Ian gives you all this in Society's Child."
—Kitty Kelley

"A splendid retelling of a major life! Janis Ian is a survivor, and her book is an illuminating and inspiring read."
—Anne McCaffrey

"Janis Ian is at once larger-than-life and excruciatingly human. In Society's Child she describes great triumphs, devastating betrayals of every kind, and her extraordinary strength of spirit shines through every page."
—Kathy Mattea

"A book of surpassing clarity and truth."
—Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game

"I laughed, I ached, I wept, I cheered...and ultimately was totally taken by Janis Ian's honest and deeply moving autobiography: an insightful and courageous personal account of her musical, spiritual and emotional journey."
—Noel Paul Stookey, of Peter, Paul & Mary

 

Editorial Reviews

"I was born into the crack that split America," Ian writes, and her early immersion in the folk music scene of the 1960s helped shape her prodigious songwriting talents while she was still in her teens. The autobiography shares a title with her first hit, a song about a doomed interracial romance that was considered too controversial for many record labels and radio stations. The pressures of the music industry and her troubled family life drove Ian to a nervous breakdown at the age of 19. It was in the following long period of recovery that she wrote her most famous song, "At Seventeen." ("I'd never sing it in public," she says of her initial feelings about the song. "It was just too humiliating.") Soon after reaching that recording peak, her life was derailed by a series of troubles ranging from an abusive marriage (to a man she first met because she was in love with his girlfriend) to massive tax liabilities to bouts with septicemia and chronic fatigue syndrome. The roller-coaster ride may be typical stuff for celebrity autobiography, but fans will appreciate the candor with which Ian discusses these hardships and her gradual path to happiness as an independent singer-songwriter in Nashville. (July)

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Publishers Weekly

The sad life and hard times of the queen of mopey folk. Fifteen-year-old Ian became a cause celebre in the 1960s as the composer and performer of "Society's Child," a folk-pop song that daringly addressed an interracial romance between teenagers. In calm, lucid prose, she charts the bumpy path of her life and career since then as an embattled lesbian singer-songwriter with, apparently, worse luck than the Chicago Cubs. Precociously intelligent, Ian felt alienated from her peers, and this early unhappiness seems to have colored many of her subsequent experiences. As she struggled to advance her career in an often cruel and superficial industry, she was repeatedly cheated and mismanaged, never quite breaking through to superstardom despite such hits as the 1975 wallflower anthem "At Seventeen." In her account, the author sees herself as a perpetual victim: molested by the family dentist as a child, drugged by a stranger on the streets of New York, sexually manipulated by her therapist and various girlfriends, cheated by business managers, persecuted by the IRS, beaten and threatened with death by a psychotic husband. Serious health problems also repeatedly sidelined Ian, including an incapacitating bout of chronic fatigue syndrome. All of which would suggest she is an epic downer to hang out with. As a narrator, though, she proves excellent company, providing fascinating insights into the craft of songwriting and amusing anecdotes about carousing with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. The personal material is equally gripping, in a soap-operatic way, rife with betrayals, sexual intrigue, danger and madness. As evidenced by many of her lyrics (and second career writingscience-fiction stories), Ian is a natural prose stylist with a real knack for pacing and the telling detail. What might have been a dreary catalog of woe is instead a juicily entertaining look at an unusual life in show business. Downbeat yet oddly rollicking and compulsively readable.

Kirkus Reviews

Society’s Child is the hugely readable autobiography of an artist who has lived through success and crushing hardship but knows that ‘you can’t sing and cry at the same time.’ Sing on!”
—O, The Oprah Magazine

“Painfully candid . . . hard to put down.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“A juicily entertaining look at an unusual life in show business."Downbeat yet oddly rollicking and compulsively readable.”
—Kirkus Reviews

"Deftly written, the life experiences described by Janis Ian in this engaging memoir gives us a peek into the anatomy of a brilliant songwriter'
—Joan Baez

"One of life's greatest pleasures is a book that you simply can't put down—one that transports you from start to finish as it elevates, enlightens, engages and entertains. Janis Ian gives you all this in Society's Child."
—Kitty Kelley

"A splendid retelling of a major life! Janis Ian is a survivor, and her book is an illuminating and inspiring read."
—Anne McCaffrey

"Janis Ian is at once larger-than-life and excruciatingly human. In Society's Child she describes great triumphs, devastating betrayals of every kind, and her extraordinary strength of spirit shines through every page."
—Kathy Mattea

"A book of surpassing clarity and truth."
—Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game

"I laughed, I ached, I wept, I cheered...and ultimately was totally taken by Janis Ian's honest and deeply moving autobiography: an insightful and courageous personal account of her musical, spiritual and emotional journey."
—Noel Paul Stookey, of Peter, Paul & Mary



 

From the Publisher

Grammy Award winner Janis Ian shares her journey as an American singer-songwriter who first entered the music scene in the mid-1960s. She’s most known for a controversial (at the time) hit single, “Society’s Child,” about an interracial romance. Her memoir provides an intimate and honest look at a woman who has been active in the music business for more than 40 years. Hearing Ian tell her story adds emotional depth and character to the journey she shares. She serenades the listener with her powerful lyrics at just the right moments, explaining her thought processes when she wrote them. She also vividly conveys her personal memories of noteworthy friends such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. D.Z. 2013 Spoken Word Grammy Award Winner, 2013 Audies Winner © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2012 - AudioFile