Artists currently making music like Caroline Polachek ,St Vincent and Big Joanie undoubtedly owe a debt of influence to the fearless trailblazer Kathleen Hanna. Her new memoir, Rebel Girl, is as expected, unflinching, affecting and lucid.
She writes prose like lyrics, in short, sharp bursts. Nothing is spared, from navigating a difficult,abusive home, to surviving rapes, illness and sexual assault, to creating the Riot Grrrl movement with DIY fanzines and her band Bikini Kill through necessity: female punk bands like them were still the exception rather than the rule in the late eighties.She writes, “the things I’m writing about aren’t stories, they’re my blood”.
Of course, it’s often harrowing, furious and heartbreaking. But Hanna has zero self- pity and is not in the business of leaning into misery memoirs. Instead, it’s like the best of her music : raw, witty, smart and vulnerable. We’re lucky to have her, now as always, to speak her truth.
Out now via Collins.
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