Nude as the news
A new biography on Cat Power attempts to trace the origin myth of an indie darling
By Adam Schragin
Published: April 15th, 2009 | 12:50pm
Chan Marshall is many things to may people – a savant, an enigma, a mess. As the songwriter and principal member of the band Cat Power, Marshall has presided over a recording output that began as brittle, bare, and disjointed, but which is now apparently palatable enough to launch major ad campaigns. Trying to untangle the mythos surrounding Marshall is rock writer and editor of now-defunct Blender magazine Elizabeth Goodman, with whom Marshall refused to cooperate with for this project. Marshall is known for erratic behavior that includes onstage meltdowns, and her relationship with the press has often been strained. Still, Goodman makes a good-faith effort to speak with Marshall’s family, including her father Charlie, and members of her original social set both in Atlanta and New York.
In A Good Woman, Goodman traces Marshall’s ascent from a difficult childhood to critical and commercial success, often concentrating on the contentious relationship she had with her parents – the unstable Myra and domineering Charlie. Even while they were married, Chan’s parents’ drug-fueled lifestyle set the groundwork for an unhappy coming-of-age, and Myra more than once was unable to care for her family, leaving her now ex-husband to raise the children. Chan’s father, Charlie, was a musician as well, but his strict, no-nonsense approach to the craft created as much of a barrier between his precocious daughter and himself than a bond. Once emancipated from her family, we’re given a glimpse of Chan as a friendly if shy member of the counter-culture set in Atlanta and New York, and close friends give an account of her as self-deprecating but inwardly poised and mature. It’s perhaps not surprising that so many of the characters in Chan’s story – many of whom are male – fixate on her physical beauty as much as her songwriting talent, but either way, Chan has had no shortage of supporters of her music, from Matador Records’ co-owner Gerard Cosloy to Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley.
While the journey from mumbling ’90s indie darling to Chanel model is made vivid by Goodman’s focused, tangent-free writing, her editorializing tends to oversimplify Chan’s story, which includes a pretty unjustified exploration into mother Myra and even Chan’s mental health. Guesswork into Marshall’s personal motivations is one thing, but speculating on the effects of schizophrenia on her life based on magazine interviews is entirely different.
Another dubious constant of the book is Goodman’s much-hammered assertion that the duality of Marshall’s country-girl roots and songstress sophistication are at the crux of her struggles with identity and self-expression. True or false, the author irritatingly treats this conclusion with Holy Grail-style reverence, repeating it with the frequency of a thesis statement. Regardless, it can be said that Goodman, with her biography, does accurately deliver a clear portrait of the conflicted and talented mind behind the voice of some of indie rock’s most tender and expressive recordings.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Cat Power: A Good Woman
By: Elizabeth Goodman
304 pages, $10.94
Issue #34
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