No Walls and the Recurring Dream

by Ani DiFranco

Overview

A memoir by the celebrated singer-songwriter and social activist Ani DiFranco

In her new memoir, No Walls and the Recurring Dream, Ani DiFranco recounts her early life from a place of hard-won wisdom, combining personal expression, the power of music, feminism, political activism, storytelling, philanthropy, entrepreneurship, and much more into an inspiring whole. In these frank, honest, passionate, and often funny pages is the tale of one woman's eventful and radical journey to the age of thirty. Ani's coming of age story is defined by her ethos of fierce independence--from being an emancipated minor sleeping in a Buffalo bus station, to unwaveringly building a career through appearances at small clubs and festivals, to releasing her first album at the age of 18, to consciously rejecting the mainstream recording industry and creating her own label, Righteous Babe Records. In these pages, as in life, she never hesitates to challenge established rules and expectations, maintaining a level of artistic integrity that has impressed many and antagonized more than a few. Ani continues to be a major touring and recording artist as well as a celebrated activist and feminist, standing as living proof that you can overcome all personal and societal obstacles to be who you are and to follow your dreams.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780735225176
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/07/2019
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	543,986
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Ani DiFranco is a Grammy-winning musical artist and feminist icon recognized for her poetry and songwriting which pierces social convention and challenges the status quo, as well as for her social activism and political engagement. One of the first artists to create her own label in 1990, she is the mother of the DIY movement and has sold over 5.5 million albums on her own Righteous Babe Records, and recently released her twentieth studio album. While she has been known as the "Little Folksinger," her music has embraced many genres and collaborators ranging from Bob Dylan to Chuck D to Prince. She lives in New Orleans.

Table of Contents

Introducing… 1

Self Evident 4

1 No Walls 11

Pedigree 15

Plans 17

Martin Luther 19

Exposure 22

Names 23

The Lake 25

Dancing 29

2 Hello Friend 33

And Hello Friend 36

Making Songs 1 38

Gigging 39

Emancipation 41

The Big Apple 45

The Unread Note 47

Suzi 49

Precipice 53

Reproductive System 55

Silences 57

760 Ashland Avenue 60

Scot Fisher 62

Talent Contest 64

Wildcat Builders 66

The Road Not Taken 67

3 Making Songs 2 69

My Other Other Voice 70

If You Can Make It There … 72

Eponymous Debut 76

Traveling Salesmen 80

Pay to Play 83

Strays 85

Too Good to Be True 88

Now Voyager 90

The New School for Social Research 96

Boopha 98

Sekou 102

Racist Bullshit 106

Activation 108

Pete Seeger 112

4 The New Frontier 117

The Lone Star State 123

Unwelcome Home 127

Once More With Feeling 128

The Slant 134

My IQ 136

Beauty and the Beast 137

Californiiay 139

Reverse Objectification 142

Up a Notch 144

Typhoid Mary 148

The Changing of the Guard 149

Andy 153

Water Water Everywhere 157

Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago 159

I.R.S. 162

Rendezvous 163

Mexico 167

5 Mish 173

Folk festivals 179

Utah 181

The Alphabet vs The Goddess 186

Making Songs 3 190

A Record of an Event 191

The Boob Tube 197

A Mother's Work 201

It's Not an Adventure, It's a Job 204

Merch 207

Goat 208

Heidi Ho 212

Chick Singers 216

Hitchfest 220

Arbitration 221

6 Italia 227

Spewing Chunks 230

Muscle Cars 232

Excuse Me, Ms.? 235

Rebirth 240

Grand Canyon 242

The Guthrie Archives 246

Nora 249

Cultural Equity 251

Fellow Workers 253

A Matter of Life and Death 256

Maceo 258

Making Songs 4 262

A Prince Among Men 263

Photo Shoots 268

7 Longstory Short 273

Why Are You Getting So Mad? 275

Grey 281

The Crash 283

Late Night 285

Subdivision 286

8 The Shock Was Subsonic 289

Crash Number Two 294

Platforms 296

Platforms 297

Making Songs 5 299

Akimbo 300

Whole Other Girls 301

Imagine That 303

Other People's Trash 304

Recurring Dream 306

Acknowledgments 307

Editorial Reviews

01/31/2019

DiFranco, a Grammy Award–winning musician and political activist, makes her literary debut in this powerful reflection on her life and career. Born in 1970, DiFranco grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., the daughter of an aeronautical engineer father and an architect mother, who designed their wall-less, “donut-shaped” house. DiFranco credits her father with forming her “musical subconscious” by introducing her to the music of composer Aaron Copland, guitarist John Fahey, and folk musician Pete Seeger; her mother, meanwhile, instilled in her a sense of social activism. DiFranco began her musical career as a preteen, learning the piano and the guitar while writing her own songs. After her parents separated, she moved out of her mother’s house at age 15, finding spare rooms with friends and even sleeping in the bus station. DiFranco immersed herself in music (“I began my musical journey at the intersection of Suzanne Vega and John Martyn”), and moved to New York City in 1989, where she studied poetry and feminism at the New School. In 1990, she cofounded Righteous Babe Records and released her self-titled debut record. Throughout, DiFranco writes of her self-doubts and romantic hardships, including her 2003 divorce from husband Andrew Gilchrist; she also discusses her advocacy for women’s reproductive rights (she herself had two abortions; she now has two children). Honest and passionate, DiFranco’s memoir will resonate with her many fans. (May)

Publishers Weekly

2019-02-17

The Grammy-winning artist recounts the eventful story of her life as a musician and feminist political activist.

The daughter of an architect mother and an engineer father, DiFranco grew up in 1970s Buffalo as a cheerfully independent misfit who loved horses and poetry. After her brother was hospitalized for psychiatric issues, she shifted her attention to dancing and music. She learned to play guitar from a colorful public school artist-in-residence named Michael and came to realize that music "brought me deeper and deeper into the world" in a way that dancing did not. When her mother left the family, DiFranco followed her but then left to strike out on her own as an emancipated teenager, sleeping in bus stations, gigging with Michael, and working to finish high school early. Then she moved to New York and, at age 18, started selling tapes of what became her eponymous debut album. DiFranco also began a long, complex relationship with Scot Fisher, who helped her manage her newly founded label, Righteous Babe Records. In between playing clubs and festivals at home and abroad, DiFranco took classes at the New School for Social Research, discovered feminism, and began experimenting with bisexual polyamory. Her commitment to left-wing political activism also blossomed, and she engaged in protests against the first Gulf War and American intervention in El Salvador. By the mid-1990s, DiFranco moved out of the hardscrabble underground scene and into the mainstream, which now recognized her as a major talent and successful entrepreneur. Marriage to her sound engineer and tours around the world followed. Yet in the midst of triumph, she still felt "utterly alone." Like post-9/11 America, she would endure several "years of flailing" along an uncertain path. Interspersed throughout with feminist/political musings and anecdotes about such music legends as Pete Seeger, Prince, and Bob Dylan, DiFranco's tale celebrates both independent music and an unconventional life daringly lived.

A refreshingly frank and free-spirited memoir from a feminist icon.

Kirkus Reviews

One of Amazon's Best Books of the Year So Far

“Ani DiFranco has written a memoir as fierce, freewheeling, and passionate as her music. Like Patti Smith’s Just Kids and Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run, No Walls and the Recurring Dream charts the evolution of an artist whose voice couldn’t be suppressed by poverty, by misogyny, by record executives—and we hear it, loud and true.” 
—O, the Oprah Magazine

“After reading this funny, honest account of [Ani DiFranco’s] life up to age 30, it’s clear that though her choices may not be for everyone, they’re part and parcel of her integrity and creative path.”
—The Washington Post
 
“Ani DiFranco has spent decades challenging the status quo, standing up for what she believes and creating honest, raw music. Her memoir is an extension of these passions. . . . No Walls and the Recurring Dream is unapologetic, steadfast, and vulnerable. It’s as if DiFranco has invited you into the living room of her New Orleans home to have a long discussion about how she got to where she is.”
—Associated Press

“[DiFranco] manages to shed new light on how a young, talented woman created enough momentum to slingshot herself beyond her town’s suffocating gravitational pull and create an entirely new solar system, populated with an orbit of planets and moons of her own devising.”
—Rolling Stone

"DiFranco's memoir undoubtedly bubbles up from the same creative well as her music. . . . Pages that read like a diary's confessional. . . . This is a story with a soul."
—Sarah Hass, Los Angeles Review of Books

“Ani DiFranco’s memoir plays by similar rules to which she’s lived her life and worked her career: there are no conventions; nothing is sacred; she will tell the tale however she pleases. . . . Fascinating. . . . This is a worthy read for those interested in folk music, social activism, DIY recording, and general badassery.”
—Paste, “The 25 Best Memoirs of the 2010s”

“Part feminist and social-justice manifesto, part bracing road story. . . . A deep and thoughtful current runs throughout DiFranco’s memoir. She’s a longtime activist, and her book highlights the value and power of speaking up.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer

"[Ani] DiFranco chronicles her rise to fame with engaging candor. Fending for herself by age 15, she survived each unusual day with ingenuity and perseverance. . . . DiFranco is a natural storyteller, infusing these pages—with their frequent offbeat anecdotes, unusual characters, and significant episodes—with wit, humor, and perspective. She also intersperses the narrative with some of her most notable poetry. DiFranco has defied convention yet remained true to herself. A must for her fans, this riveting, thought-provoking work will also appeal to anyone who enjoys a well-written autobiography."
—Library Journal, starred review

"The Grammy-winning [Ani DiFranco] recounts the eventful story of her life as a musician and feminist political activist. . . . Interspersed throughout with feminist/political musings and anecdotes about such music legends as Pete Seeger, Prince, and Bob Dylan, DiFranco's tale celebrates both independent music and an unconventional life daringly lived. A refreshingly frank and free-spirited memoir from a feminist icon."
—Kirkus Reviews

"[DiFranco] makes her literary debut in this powerful reflection on her life and career. . . . Throughout, DiFranco writes of her self-doubts and romantic hardships. . . . Honest and passionate, DiFranco's memoir will resonate with her many fans."
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

★ 04/01/2019

Award-winning musician, songwriter, and poet DiFranco chronicles her rise to fame with engaging candor. Fending for herself by age 15, she survived each unusual day with ingenuity and perseverance while pursuing her education and musical passion. She performed whenever possible in coffee houses, clubs, and other venues, developing an eclectic sound all her own—drawn from folk, rock, and multigenre influences. Emerging as a sought-after performer and collaborator at home and abroad, she also became a trailblazer in the recording industry: founding and maintaining her independent label, Righteous Babe Records, and successfully issuing more than 20 of her own albums (including Little Plastic Castle and Living in Clip). An activist who has never been afraid to confront the musical, social, or political establishments, she's served as a role model for many. DiFranco is a natural storyteller, infusing these pages—with their frequent offbeat anecdotes, unusual characters, and significant episodes—with wit, humor, and perspective. She also intersperses the narrative with some of her most notable poetry. VERDICT DiFranco has defied convention yet remained true to herself. A must for her fans, this riveting, thought-provoking work will also appeal to anyone who enjoys a well-written autobiography.—Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ

Library Journal

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