Customer Reviews

Society's Child: My Autobiography

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Best of Janis Ian: The Autobiography Collection
I'm really amazed, and you wouldn't believe how cool it is to be able to see this book and the CD that goes with it here on Amazon. I tried to write an honest book, and not whine too much (though it was tempting.) I tried to live up to the best of my songwriting, which is hard because I've been writing songs since I was 12, and writing books for a little over a year now.
I can't understand why Amazon keeps pairing the book with "Girls Like Us," which doesn't even mention me, instead of the "Best of Janis Ian: The Autobiography Collecton," which I worked long and hard on. And which also accompanies my own book; they piggy back on each other. Still, it's a thrill every time I look at this page, and I'm happy Amazon exists!

This is the long awaited story of the life of Janis Ian. The work spans her entire career as a grammy winning singer, songwriter, musician and author. Janis penned this extraordinarily candid work herself. It begins with her birth, family issues and hardships, her struggles as a teenage star, relationships, friendships with icons like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and ends in Janis' present life, still performing after four decades. She shares rare insights into the writing and recording of her various albums, including songs "Society's Child" and "At Seventeen". She also shares bravely about her too long marriage to a brilliant, yet addicted and abusive ex-husband, and her very happy Canadian marriage to her current partner. An alias is used here and there, but those of us who have followed Janis' career will probably know who everyone is. I had the honor of auctioning a rare galley copy on Ebay (the "Pearl Foundation" getting 100% of the proceeds),with Janis' blessing back in late May, 2008. That paperback, even without the picture insert went for $1550.00. There were 30 bids, with 10 of them well over $1,000.00. You will be wise to add a copy of this stunning book to your Janis Ian, or singer songwriter biography collection! There is also a new 2 cd set that is available. Each song is a book chapter! B001B0H7AY, check it out!!!

I stayed up all night to read Janis' book. What a life she had! What a life she is still having! From her teens to the present, Janis has shown that talent and guts will keep you in the business. Her story both personally and professionally is told with honesty and she pulls no punches. Ian talks candidly about the music business with all the good and the bad. Anyone who reads her story will be fascinated by an extraordinary woman and her career.

When you are 15 years old, what do you do for an encore when Leonard Bernstein features you on national television, your first single charts in the top ten garnering a Grammy nomination, and The New York Times anoints you "a new boldness in popular music" and "radiant new talent?" Most child prodigies fade quickly from view, but Janis Ian is thriving some forty years later, though not without immense struggle as detailed in her just released autobiography.

Born a red diaper baby on a chicken farm in New Jersey, Ian began playing the piano at three, wrote her first song at twelve, and was performing at hootenannies in New York's Greenwich Village one year later. At fourteen, this wunderkind walked into pop producer Shadow Morton's office and the very next week recorded her controversial folk ballad about interracial dating, Society's Child.

It was 1967. David Geffen was her agent, The Byrds opened for her on tour, she shopped with Janis Joplin, did cocaine with Jimi Hendrix, and performed on the Johnny Carson, Mike Douglas, and Smothers Brothers television programs. Life Magazine followed her around, wanting photos of her "acting like a teenager" to intersperse with pictures of her on stage and in TV studios.
Perplexing times for this woman child, who in a few short years, crashes and burns, sequestering herself in Philadelphia to recover from emotional exhaustion. Three years later, after lots of "intensive therapy," Roberta Flack has a hit with her Jesse and Ian returns to the music business, eventually selling over ten million records and earning multiple Grammy awards, with such songs as the iconic lament, At Seventeen, disco hit, Fly Too High, and jazz duet with Mel Torme, Silly Habits.
The autobiography catapults the reader along her career trajectory. When At Seventeen begins to get radio play, initially she and the band drive a station wagon from one 200-seat club to another. Then a month later, they play 2,000-seat theaters, and a month after that, are playing 5,000-seat auditoriums being shuttled around in tour buses and limousines. In this mid `70s period, she lived openly with girlfriends, and was "outed" by The Village Voice to the consternation of her record label. The glory, drugs, sex, and isolation on the road are intimately captured with unvarnished clarity and insight.

Throughout, Ian entertains with marvelous gossipy bits about Donovan, Laura Nyro, Frank Zappa, James Brown, and Nina Simone, but more powerful are her poignant observations about surviving her own life. She walked away from music again in the early `80s, thinking she had enough money and wanting to settle down and start a family with a man. However, the idyll spiraled into tragedy: her husband became psychotic, financial malfeasance by her bookkeeper left her penniless - owing $1.3 million to the IRS, and two emergency surgeries sapped her of her health.

Ian's writing about this later bottoming out period is particularly compelling, as she helps us understand her abusive relationship with her Valium-addled husband, whom she left only after he hit her and held a gun to her head for hours. Even then, she mourned the end of their relationship.

Knowing many readers would be incredulous, she writes, "I thought I was exempt, too. I wasn't like "those women." Those women, battered women, were stupid. Uneducated. Ignorant. Poor. I was just the opposite. I had everything going for me - success, brains, money. And still, I was seduced, and reduced, until after seven years with him, part of me honestly thought I was stupid, uneducated, and useless."

Ian's story doesn't end here, but chronicles her salvation and eventual renaissance through the love of her female partner of the last twenty years. Ian returns to recording and performing in the `90s, and branches out to write columns for The Advocate, Performing Songwriter, science fiction, and now this book.

Her introspective autobiographical journey concludes, joyous and hopeful: "How much wonder there is to treasure in this life! Even winter, with its long nights and frigid days, would be welcome now. I would take joy in every gust of wind, every snowflake that might fall. Because I was alive, and that was the greatest gift of all."

Coinciding with the release of her autobiography, the artist has released a sumptuous 30-song two-CD retrospective from her 40-year career entitled, Best of Janis Ian: The Autobiography Collection. Those unfamiliar will be surprised with her range of musical styles, while those familiar will be thrilled with her classic hits referenced in the book, as well as work tapes, never before released songs, and ones long out of print.

Janis and I were both 15 when this waif of a girl came on stage in NYC, after being introduced by Murray The K, and, standing alone in the spotlight, sang Society's Child.

We were stunned, and I admit, I had an adolescent crush on Janis for years.

Honestly, along the way, I lost her music, but always felt a kinship to her. Then, when the book came out, I couldn't wait to read it.

I had no idea how much adversity this beautiful woman overcame. I don't want to reveal "spoilers", but, suffice to say, I don't think 4 people could have overcome what this one person has. She walked through hell, and out the exit door. This book should be required reading for today's "instant celebrities" that don't appreciate what they have, and how fast they can lose it all.

I have nothing but respect (and still love her)for her courage and her talent. I am reacquainting myself to her music, and feel like I've found an old friend. I am totally inspired.

The book unfolds, and each chapter tells another story well. It's unreal; just when you think Janis is back on the road to happiness and success, something new detours her journey. Janis learned that success and happiness are not the same, and happiness is not dependent upon success.

PLEASE read this book. Thanks you, Janis, for sharing your innermost feelings, providing inspiration, and for hanging in. As you said, they can take away anything BUT your talent. May the sun shine on you forever.

A page turner I couldn't put down. For Janis Ian to continue being a creative and engaging performer despite all that she's been through is a testament to her true talent as an artist. Her stories of other performers, good and bad, her family, her childhood all make this a non-stop, hugely readable book.

This book is hard to put down, even if going to see Janis live! I travelled from Australia to attend the first book launch, and it was well worth it. It is a great account of a true artist's life and loves, good and bad. There are parts that bring tears and parts that bring out loud laughter. Janis' articles in The Advocate are evidence of her brilliant writing and take on life. Some of these can be viewed on her website in the Prose section, and if you are having trouble purchasing the book here, go to [...] and purchase it from the Merchandise section. It is a must have.

I've been listening to Janis Ian's music since my college days, and now to learn the backstory is great. Truly well-written and vastly entertaining. The music CD release in conjunction is such a bonus!

Well it knocked me out. It took some time for my 52 year old brain to remember my 20's and early 30's and the drama of relationships that often goes with this time in people's lives. It really is an amazing story, hard for me to believe after reading the book that Janis actually sat in my living room and played for a group of my friends. I think if I had to do it all over again I would not even invite them, just savor the experience.

How did she survive? What spirit, strength of character and strength of mind and body Janis must come from.

It was genius to release the accompaning CD set with the book. Even though I have not gotten mine, I did pull out my CD's over the weekend and listened to them with a whole new ear and point of view. To have the back story on this incredible music opens up a whole new way of listening.

The book so speaks to a time in this country's history, and for readers my age and around that age, our own history. It may have been a quick read for me but it is staying with me long after the reading is done.

I find myself thinking about opportunities in my life that came knocking and I did not see them for what they were at the time. No regrets but oh, the lost opportunities. I truly hope the book gets the audience Janis deserves. It was great fun last week to be riding in my car and to hear Janis being interviewed on NPR, before I realized who was speaking I thought, I know that voice.

I hope I have not been a spoiler, I don't really think you can spoil this book. Many of Janis's fans are familiar with much of the material but not the feelings and personal reflections that are written about here in such depth and so openly.

All I can say is THANK YOU!

been a forever fan and enjoyed this immensely... haven't sat down and read a book in so long and this one kept me wanting to read and read...