Broken Horses

March 19, 2021

In this memoir, five-time Grammy Award winner Carlile takes readers on a journey, from her childhood home in the country, to Joni Mitchell's living room, and beyond. In her debut book, Carlile's writing reflects the same candor that listeners get when they hear her music. She uses a casual tone and often addresses readers directly, which makes the narrative feel like a conversation with a friend, whether she is discussing her vocal phases, the various genre designations assigned to her music, or her thoughts about when and if to start a family. Carlile makes the format her own by including song lyrics and personal photos between each chapter. The singer-songwriter explores different topics that have had a major impact on her life, including family, her sexuality, and the COVID-19 pandemic. She also includes letters she has written to other artists, such as Adele, about the ways they have inspired or impacted Carlile through the darkest of times. Overall, she paints an intimate and elaborate picture of what it's like to be a famous musician when the camera and the stage lights are turned off. VERDICT A good read for fans of Carlile who want a peek into her life and her growth as a musician.--Cate Triola, Capella Univ., Minneapolis

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March 15, 2021
It may be surprising that singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile has written a memoir on the cusp of only age 40, but she has accomplished a lot and has a lot to say. She has won numerous Grammy awards, including both Record of the Year and Song of the Year for ""The Joke."" The daughter of a musical mother and a father with a drinking problem, Carlile grew up poor outside of Seattle and started singing country songs when she was a child. She also survived some scary early health issues, which formed her personality in a profound way, learning, in what she calls ""Poor Kid Survival 101,"" to ""seize every opportunity."" Carlile writes about her early musical influences, such as the Judds, and includes lyrics from songs that have affected her, from Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors" and Elton John's "Honky Cat" to Joni Mitchell's "Blue" and Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."" But it was the Indigo Girls, she affirms, that changed her world both musically and personally. She came out as a lesbian in 2002. Carlile's many fans will love this.

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Starred review from April 12, 2021
Carlile, a multiple Grammy Award–winning musician, recalls the pivotal events that shaped her music and identity in this captivating memoir. Growing up in a small town outside Seattle in the ’80s, she sought the limelight early, entering singing competitions and teaching herself piano and guitar. Though her family struggled to keep food on the table, her mother’s support gave her a quiet, stable confidence. “She’d helped me try to win... and she helped me truly express myself in front of my peers.” After moving several times before high school, Carlile dropped out to focus on music. She’s candid about her sexuality and how she reconciled her faith after being turned away by her hometown church when she came out. “There was grace in the outrage my public rejection incited in my family and in that tiny town,” Carlile writes. She also offers a behind-the-scenes look at the music business, acknowledging how fortunate she was to garner respect from Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, and others she performed with. She doesn’t sugarcoat the disappointments that came her way—such as being booted off a rock tour because she was a “female-fronted opener”—instead recalling them with a self-awareness that allows balance for her marriage, motherhood, and national tours. While the author’s rise to fame was impressive, it is her raw emotion that resonates after the book’s end. Agent: David Vigliano, AGI Vigliano Literary.

Starred review from February 15, 2021
The multiple Grammy Award-winning troubadour chronicles her life and career so far. Carlile has quite a story to tell, and she digs deep into her memories of her formative years in the Pacific Northwest: poverty, evictions, transience, familial struggles with alcoholism and depression, and the meningitis that put her into a coma and accelerated her exit from childhood. Early in her adolescence, she knew she was gay, which brought a host of other challenges, not least because "I was told for most of my childhood by multiple sources that to be gay was a one-way ticket to hell." Throughout the narrative, Carlile shows acute grace and clarity as she follows her navigation of certain rites of passage. Participating in her family's band, she was a precocious child who loved the spotlight. After dropping out of high school, she continued her musical development with her own band and subsequent solo career. A turning point arrived with her collaboration with twin brothers Tim and Phil Hanseroth, established fixtures on the Seattle scene who added vocal and instrumental richness and increased her credibility with her expanding audience. Like many musicians, Carlile had run-ins with labels and producers and experienced the physical and mental suffering that a balance of recording and touring can inflict. Then there's the personal side: falling in love and fighting for the right to get married as a gay woman, have children, and take her children on tour. Along with lyrics and snapshots that suggest a scrapbook, the author provides crucial behind-the-scenes insight into her rise to stardom. Especially illuminating are her descriptions of the process of creating such songs as "The Story" and "The Joke," showing how her personal struggles strengthened her art. The story builds to her Grammy triumphs, her role in the Highwomen supergroup, her co-production of childhood hero Tanya Tucker, and her friendships with Joni Mitchell, Elton John, and the Obamas. With plenty more likely to come, the memoir ends on a high note. An intimate, life-affirming look at a musician whose artistic journey is far from over.

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