The Harder I Fight the More I Love You: A Memoir

by Neko Case

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Neko Case's rural, quiet and lonely childhood paved the way to global stardom — this is the story of how she made her place in the world. Both heartbreakingly human and hilarious, Case's memoir will appeal to readers of Miranda July and Rachel Yoder.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
AN APPLE BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH

Singer-songwriter Neko Case paints a vivid portrait of an extraordinary life—one forged through a poverty-stricken childhood, obsessive desire, bursts of comedy, and indispensable friendships—reflecting on the way art, music, and a deep connection to nature helped her  become a beloved, Grammy-nominated artist.

Neko Case has long been revered as one of music’s most influential artists, whose authenticity, lyrical storytelling, and sly wit have endeared her to a legion of critics, musicians, and lifelong fans. In THE HARDER I FIGHT THE MORE I LOVE YOU, Case brings her trademark candor and precision to a memoir that traces her evolution from an invisible girl “raised by two dogs and a space heater” in rural Washington state to her improbable emergence as an internationally-acclaimed talent.

In luminous, sharp-edged prose, Case shows readers what it’s like to be left alone for hours and hours as a child, to take refuge in the woods around her home, and to channel the monotony and loneliness and joy that comes from music, camaraderie, and shared experience into art.

THE HARDER I FIGHT THE MORE I LOVE YOU is a rebellious meditation on identity and corruption, and a manifesto on how to make space for ourselves in this world, despite the obstacles we face.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538710500
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	01/28/2025
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Singer, songwriter, music producer, visual artist, and writer Neko Case has built a career with her distinctive style and musical versatility. In addition to her numerous critically-acclaimed and Grammy-nominated solo records, Case is a founding member of The New Pornographers. She authors the newsletter ‘Entering The Lung’ and is currently composing the musical theater adaptation of an Academy Award winning motion picture.

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/28/2024

In her first book, singer-songwriter Case takes a gut-wrenching look at her difficult childhood and her path toward a music career. Case’s parents, she writes, were “the typical cautionary tale of two teens who have sex for the first time ever... and get pregnant by accident.” That made Case, who grew up in rural Virginia, “a child of children” who weren’t especially interested in raising her. In second grade, her father told her that her mother had died of cancer; a short time later, her mother suddenly reappeared, and Case eventually learned that she was never even sick. Following their reunion, Case and her mother bounced between small towns across the country, eventually settling in Tacoma, Wash., where Case was legally emancipated from her parents at age 15. Afterward, she roamed Tacoma and began playing in bands. She discusses moving to and from British Columbia, linking up with Carl Newman to start the New Pornographers, and launching her solo career in prose that’s unfussy but often beautiful (Case preferred walking Tacoma at night because “there was less consciousness to contend with.... I wasn’t so on edge and my cyclonic churning could ebb a little”). With equal doses of grit and self-compassion, Case delivers a riveting autobiography that will fascinate even those who’ve never heard her music. Agent: Jennifer Gates, Aevitas Creative Management. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Readers don’t need to be familiar with her music to be moved by her raw, unflinching memoir, which chronicles her impoverished and at times surreal upbringing as well as her long journey toward self-confidence. It’s a book that mixes defiant humor with an unsentimental resilience that recalls Cheryl Strayed.”
 —New York Times

“But let’s stay awhile, you and I… reading Case’s gorgeous memoir, THE HARDER I FIGHT THE MORE I LOVE YOU, which hits you in the same places her songs do: heart and gut, funny bone and sad bone.”—Washington Post Book Review

“Case has a songwriter’s gift for potent imagery…That imagination and wit speak to the other prevailing theme in the memoir, the element that gives it a lift: Case’s observations of her hard-won resilience.”—Kirkus (starred review)

“Reader, I really want to hand this book to you personally and tell you, in one excited rush, how much it moved me. THE HARDER I FIGHT THE MORE I LOVE YOU is a hell of an origin story: heartbreaking and funny, brave and weird, hard to swallow and impossible to put down. Neko Case has been my favorite singer-songwriter for many years, hands down, and now she’s written one of my favorite memoirs.”
 —Maggie Smith, New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful

"A vivid, exuberant, heartrending coming-of-age story that demonstrates the saving power of art. This book captured me the way Case's songs do: with their ache and beauty and promise that the only way through this life is to feel it all."
 —Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism

"This is a fierce, funny, moving memoir that will break your heart and patch it back up. Case's writing is as piercing and beautiful as her gorgeous singing, and will carry you away completely." 
 —New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean

"The gift of Neko Case as a memoirist mirrors the gift of Neko Case as a songwriter: there is a warmth of clarity, of language selection, of narrative flourish. This book reads, and feels, as if you are on a porch with an old friend, telling you stories you've heard a hundred times, but cannot wait to hear once more."
 —Hanif Abdurraqib, author of #1 National Bestseller There's Always This Year

"This book, like everything Neko Case touches, is a work of art — full of moments that kaleidoscope your view of the world into something new. Heartbreaking and honest and raw, THE HARDER I FIGHT THE MORE I LOVE YOU is a testament to the fact that this artist, like her music, was born from the fire."—Rebecca Makkai, author of I Have Some Questions for You

"I burned through this book in three feverish days, overcome by the spellcasting, storytelling, and pure song of Neko Case’s words. Here is one of the most remarkable people you will ever meet, on the page or otherwise: So honest, kind, funny, and tender—so human—you will fall in love if you haven’t already. A book not so much about the creation of an icon as it is about the lionhearted love Neko Case has for the whole damn world."
 —Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch

“With equal doses of grit and self-compassion, Case delivers a riveting autobiography that will fascinate even those who’ve never heard her music.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Case shares a raw and inspiring heroine’s journey.”—Booklist Reviews

“In her richly told memoir…Case employs the same fairy tale-like storytelling language in The Harder I Fight that she uses in her lyrics, casting a veil of enchantment over her experiences, however painful… Hold The Harder I Fightin your lap like a warm, furred creature. Listen to what the psychopomp has to say, and let it guide you out of the woods.”—BookPage

“The singer-songwriter Neko Case’s new memoir is a superhero origin story…It’s through Case’s extraordinary imagination and resilience that she’s managed to make so much out of her inner were-creature.”—Slate

“A musician’s autobiography where the most riveting parts, the engine driving it all, don’t really have to do with her wild young days in a small-city music scene or her gradual rise to fame. This is more a survival story; a life in music is the solution, not the plot.”—Vulture

"Gorgeously lyrical."—Ann Powers, NPR

From the Publisher

12/01/2024

Case, who entered the Pacific Northwest music scene in the 1990s, traces her life as the daughter of teenage parents. Her parents divorced early on and jointly raised her—which she asserts they were ill-suited for—primarily in Tacoma, WA. She writes about experiencing trauma, for example, when her mother inexplicably faked her own death. Family members close to Case, including her father, were in on this ruse; a mock funeral party was even staged for Case's benefit. But her mother eventually resurfaced. A stint living with her mother on the Colville Reservation inspired Case's love for nature, which she later incorporated into her music. Case depicts her childhood as lonely and impoverished until she discovered a passion for music, which created space for friendship, community, and expression. Her music grew and evolved, and the singer/songwriter engaged in frequent and successful collaborations. Three of her albums garnered Grammy nominations. Her success enabled her to purchase a home in Vermont, as well as horses, a lifelong passion. VERDICT A sure bet for Case's many fans: a memoir that is as intriguing and mysterious as the artist herself.—Barrie Olmstead

Library Journal

Singer-songwriter Neko Case narrates her memoir and brings to it a vitality and dynamism that give the listener a sense of actually being with her as she falls victim to manipulation by her mother, beginning at age 8. Case allows us to feel the tumult and trauma of impoverishment, neglect, and a steady stream of dislocations and relocations. Case balances these with a gentler tone when caring neighbors step in to provide comfort. The passion with which Case expresses her love of nature, horses, and music is palpable and centers listeners on what really matters, giving insights about the creative journey that led to Case's albums and Grammy nominations. Case's details are fresh and inventive. S.W. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2025 - AudioFile

★ 2024-10-26
The alt-rock and country singer recalls childhood abuse, misogyny, and a wayward path to success.

Case’s memoir is informed by injustice, betrayal, and the serial mistreatment of women. Growing up in Washington state, her family was a study in dysfunction; when she was in second grade, she was told that cancer had killed her mother, who returned home a year-and-a-half later, apparently cured. (She wouldn’t get the full story till years later.) Date-raped at 14, Case spent her teens and 20s in a drug-addled world, then all but stumbled onto a music career. Though her experiences are despondent, the tone of this well-turned book is lively and often funny. That’s partly because Case has a songwriter’s gift for potent imagery. Her parents started out “poor as empty acorns” and drove a car that “looked like a nauseous basking shark”; during winters in Chicago, where her career took off, she felt the “wind hammering in like a bouquet of cold fists”; at a soundcheck, her voice “sounds like it’s being piped through a thrift-store whale’s carcass into a pirate’s wet diaper.” That imagination and wit speak to the other prevailing theme in the memoir, the element that gives it a lift: Case’s observations of her hard-won resilience. By turns, that has meant processing the psychic damage of her rape and her family’s betrayals, a disastrous fit of heatstroke at the Grand Ole Opry, an even-worse encounter with country legend (and overt bigot) Charlie Louvin, and more. Case chronicles her various career achievements as a singer-songwriter (including three Grammy nominations), but those feel almost secondary to her study of her emotional growth, which she discusses with a rare candor. “There are moments so lonely they become like personal national parks,” she writes, but the life of a touring musician is irresistible: “It’s both harder than the myth and also contains a more terrible, crunchy joy.”

A sweet-and-sour study of a songwriter’s coming-of-age.

Kirkus Reviews