12/12/2016
With unflinching honesty, Butler, a professional oboist for 25 years, recalls her love of music and how it saved her. One of her earliest memories of what would bloom into the lifelong love affair is of lying on the floor at age four and listening to her favorite opera singer, Kirsten Flagstad, in Tristan and Isolde while her mother vacuumed. Even at that young age she “implicitly understood” that music is “marvelously transcendent.” Her protective parental bubble was short-lived, as she realized that her chilly and unaffectionate mother couldn’t show her the love she craved; her father was violent and abusive with her older sister and later molested Butler herself. Her salvation came when she was 12 and the band director asked for a volunteer to take up the oboe. But she had to strike a devil’s bargain, submitting to her father’s demands in order to get rides to lessons. Butler escaped to music school at Mannes, but the lasting effects of her mother’s indifference and her father’s abuse wrought havoc on her personal life, specifically in the men she chose to date and the one whom she briefly married. She learned painful lessons, and shares them courageously along with her hard-earned wisdom about what to hold onto and what to let go. In the end, this is a moving account of how passion and creativity can be powerful weapons against neglect, cruelty, and self-harm. (Feb.)
"A tale of triumph over a childhood rife with abuse, yet blessed with talent. Filled with insight and honesty, [Butler's] memoir flows like a series of gorgeous musical phrases, taking the reader on a journey as uplifting as it is disturbing.... Her courageous memoir is a testament to the power of art to inspire and heal."
—Washington Post
"Marcia Butler's original and lyrically written memoir charts her rise from oboe prodigy to freelance professional on the international classical scene. Transportive portraits of Carnegie Hall concerts share space with memories of childhood trauma and gritty slices from 1970s New York."—New York Magazine
"For Marcia Butler, the oboe was a protective garment and a ticket to the world, though both applications came at a steep price.... The Skin Above My Knee ultimately succeeds because it leaves readers knowing a thing or two about an esoteric world."—Meghan Daum, New York Times Book Review
"Impressive.... [Butler's] imaginative prose fires the senses dramatically. Music aficionados will find an extraordinarily kindred spirit here, and lovers of memoir will find this a sensationally satisfying one."
—Booklist
"A moving account of how passion and creativity can be powerful weapons against neglect, cruelty, and self-harm."—Publishers Weekly
"[Butler] writes lovingly and beautifully.... The light and the dark fight it out in this fierce, fiery memoir."
—Kirkus
"Marcia Butler has written a beautiful memoir — meticulously nuanced, daringly honest, and utterly inspiring. I'm not sure I've ever read a book that captures so fully the ability music has to transport, sustain, defend and elevate struggling human beings through difficult times."
—Tim Page, Pulitzer Prize winning music critic, The Washington Post, author of Parallel Play and Dawn Powell: A Biography
"Gorgeously written, The Skin Above My Knee takes the reader from the world's most lauded concert venues into the innermost sanctums of musician's lives in New York. Always honest and admirably adverse to self-pity, Marcia Butler's beautiful book cuts its devastating insights with poetic love for the world. My heart broke in several places, and leapt in several others. When I finished reading, I felt as if I understood music on a level usually reserved for world class musicians. Stunning."—Marie-Helene Bertino, author of 2 A.M at The Cat's Pajamas
"Heartbreaking, page turning, and ultimately redemptive, The Skin Above My Knee is a dazzling memoir about life as an internationally recognized classical musician and about one woman's journey to the only sort of love that lasts-self-acceptance. An insider's look at the world of professional performance and a moving account of one woman's effort to transmute pain into beauty, this book will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered how you get to Carnegie Hall or how to survive family. Reader, she succeeds beautifully."—E.J. Levy, author of Love, In Theory
"In her debut memoir, The Skin Above My Knee, Marcia Butler shows us how music - listening to it, playing it, losing it, and rediscovering it - can save us. With bravery and honesty, she unflinchingly tells her story. And through it all, music resonates and becomes the soundtrack for us all."
—Ann Hood, author of The Book That Matters Most
"With clear-eyed courage and spare, lyrical prose, The Skin Above My Knee carries us not only into the mesmerizingly compelling world of a professional oboist, it also takes us into her love-starved childhood, her self-destructive young adulthood, and a descent into a solitary darkness that only her art can save from her; Marcia Butler has composed her own music here, and it is filled with passion and yearning and ultimately the kind of beauty that can save us all. This is a gorgeous book."
—Andre Dubus III
"In The Skin Above My Knee, a classical musician takes a walk on the wild side and almost doesn't make it up the stairs. Butler's remarkable memoir of a New York City freelance musician's life does for classical music what Patti Smith's Just Kids did for proto-punk, and Eileen Myles's Inferno did for Lower East Side poetry."
—Tim Tomlinson, author of Requiem for the Tree Fort I Set on Fire
"Fierce and lyrical, honest and darkly funny, Marcia Butler's memoir is so good, I found myself canceling plans with friends so I could stay home with this ravishing book. Her gift with language is rare. Not only can she describe her descent into a spiral of self-destructive behavior so vividly that you fear for her life, she will, in the end, carry you away with the poetry of her words as she describes the transcendent power of music."
—Patrica McCormick, author of the National Book Award finalist Sold
"Marcia Butler's amazing memoir, The Skin Above My Knee, could have remained a tale of damage and survivorship. But from the first page Butler announces bigger intentions than her own autobiography which in and of itself is mesmerizing. She weaves her journey as if it were music itself—at first a horn section begins playing whenever the parents enter the stage wings. But then we move to grander art and in the end the mature concerto triumphs. Always fueled by her startling musical talent and precocious intelligence, Marcia Butler is a winner and so is her must-read book."
—Nancy Zafris, author of The Home Jar
"Creativity is tricky and elusive. You can't buy it. You can't rent it. You can't borrow it. And you certainly can't fake it. Marcia Butler has it. In this superbly written memoir, Butler observes her own life, sharing the ups and downs of it and this mysterious gift which saved her. Now the rest of us who weren't fortunate enough to hear her perform can read this astounding journey into the heart of what creativity feels, tastes, and looks like, as well as see w hat goes into being an artist."
—Charles Salzberg, author of Swann's Lake of Despair
"Such is the miracle of art. But Butler also makes us confront its limits, as redemption in life is rarely whole or permanent. Music saved her from an unhappy home, but it could not fill the throbbing vacuum caused by a parent's lack of affection. Music did not rescue her from her attempts at self-destruction, though it did provide a place for her to experience a rare feeling of wholeness. Butler's unmistakable bravery turned a traumatized girl into a world-class musician, then into a writer of memorable grace and force. You hope, while reading Butler's transcendent words, that some of it will rub off on you."
—National Book Review
Marcia Butler narrates her memoir of rising above difficult circumstances through music as she struggles to overcome her challenging family life while pursuing a career as a professional oboist. Her delivery is clear and well paced even as she recounts the pain of growing up with an abusive father and an emotionally absent mother, and later finding herself in dysfunctional relationships with the men who would come into her life. In the midst of these personal challenges, she pursues mastery of her instrument. At times, Butler's narration comes off as self-involved, but given all she has experienced, baring her soul to the listener is an act of bravery. The narration is bookended by short oboe performances, a fitting addition that provides context for the listener. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Marcia Butler narrates her memoir of rising above difficult circumstances through music as she struggles to overcome her challenging family life while pursuing a career as a professional oboist. Her delivery is clear and well paced even as she recounts the pain of growing up with an abusive father and an emotionally absent mother, and later finding herself in dysfunctional relationships with the men who would come into her life. In the midst of these personal challenges, she pursues mastery of her instrument. At times, Butler's narration comes off as self-involved, but given all she has experienced, baring her soul to the listener is an act of bravery. The narration is bookended by short oboe performances, a fitting addition that provides context for the listener. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
2016-11-15
Can music save a person's life?For professional oboist Butler, the answer is yes. Her brutally honest memoir recounts the life of a woman who was able to overcome devastating emotional and physical pain, sometimes self-inflicted, thanks to the music she loved and performed. Her father was a creepy and violent man who once smashed her sister's face with a brutal punch. He haunts this book, while the author's mother comes across as weak, quiet, and passive in the background. There seemed to be little love in the household. However, there was music, and Butler grabbed on to it like a life raft. As a 4-year-old, she was mesmerized by Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and singer Kirsten Flagstad. Butler picked up the flute in fourth grade and later, when her music teacher asked for a volunteer to play a new instrument, she took on the oboe. The music and hours of practice were always there for her when her parents weren't. The book proceeds chronologically, with many italicized chapters interspersed. These are mainly about music and performing and her favorite composers, and they're a welcome respite from the pain of her personal story. Eventually, Butler got into a conservatory in New York City and worked odd jobs to survive. Her low self-esteem and unrelenting search for a new father figure led to a failed marriage, abusive boyfriends, drugs, and even a suicide attempt. But there was always the music, and she writes lovingly and beautifully about it. She tells us about making reeds for her oboe, why many conductors aren't worth their salt, how difficult and "glorious" it is to work as a freelance musician with great composers (André Watts, Keith Jarrett), and the utter joy of performing Bach's St. Matthew Passion, which "tests the endurance of all oboists." The light and the dark fight it out in this fierce, fiery memoir.
