There’s always been a kind of feral quality to singer-songwriter Neko Case. The tangle of red hair. The fierce stage presence. The raw, poetic lyrics. Whether she’s performing her gutsy blend of folk-rock-pop with her band The Boyfriends, her supergroup the New Pornographers or solo, she comes across as a bit untamed. She even has a song called “I’m an Animal.”
Having read her inspiring new memoir, “The Harder I Fight the More I Love You” (Grand Central Publishing, $30), I see now that she comes by that trait naturally.
Born to a pair of mismatched teenagers who don’t stay together long, Case recounts a lonely childhood, flitting back and forth between her preoccupied parents who frequently move from one remote, rundown place to the next and leave their daughter alone for long stretches of time.
At age 7, she spends a whole summer alone 10 hours a day — with no phone and the closest neighbor a mile away — fending off rattlesnakes and scavenging raw pasta and boxed cake mix for sustenance. Her parents aren’t abusive, per se, they’re just absent, both emotionally and literally. At one point her mother fakes her death and goes to Hawaii for a while, only to — psych! — return later with a new boyfriend and a convoluted story about beating cancer.
Credit: Grand Central Press
Credit: Grand Central Press
By 14, Case is hanging out in Seattle and sneaking into clubs to see punk shows. Two years later she’s emancipated from her parents, patching together an existence in Tacoma and immersing herself in the music scene.
“I was 16 years old, a skinny, feral, lonely kid who had grown up longing for normal food, biting the heads off fleas and never brushing my hair,” she writes. “Over the past years, a rage had grown up in me, the way rage might grow up in any animal that has its foot in a trap. It flew off of me, in sparks.”
It comes as no surprise that Case finds her tribe and her salvation in music — “the only thing on Earth that never let me down.” She plays drums in her first band, and one can only imagine the fury she must have unleashed. That she overcomes the odds and goes on to achieve such astonishing success is a testament to her strength of character.
What is surprising, though, is how magnanimous she is toward her parents. This memoir is no “Mommie Dearest.” Known for her deep, abiding love of animals, especially horses, Case proves she has a heart big enough for all creatures, including the broken human ones who failed her.
A Cappella Books presents Neko Case in conversation with Virginia Prescott, former host of GPB’s “On Second Thought,” Feb. 1 at Tara Theatre. For tickets go to acappellabooks.com.
Credit: Minotaur Books/Mariner Books/Pegasus Crime
Credit: Minotaur Books/Mariner Books/Pegasus Crime
The plot thickens. Three books based in Georgia, including one by Atlanta author Philip Depoy, have been nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Nominated for the Lilian Jackson Braun Memorial Award is “Booked for Murder” (Minotaur Books, $29), a cozy mystery set in Decatur by P.J. Nelson, pen name for Depoy. Braun was the author of the beloved “The Cat Who …” mystery series.
Nominated for Best Fact Crime is “A Devil Went Down to Georgia” (Pegasus Crime, $28.95) by Deb Miller Landau, about the murder of Buckhead socialite Lita McClinton Sullivan. Also nominated in the same category is “Hell Put to Shame” (Mariner, $32.50) by Earl Swift, about the 1920s-era mass killings at “murder farms” in rural Georgia. Winners will be announced May 1.
Suzanne Van Atten is a book critic and contributing editor to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She may be reached at Suzanne.VanAtten@ajc.com.
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