I’m not a people person. That’s my first line at job interviews.

It would be more accurate to say that I’ve never been interested in autobiographies. Or biographies, for that matter. I suppose I exalt imagination over reality and never desired to “learn something” from the actual lives of others. Don’t try this at home? I’d rather take my chances. And I never succumbed to hero-worship, either, wanting to know “what they were like” if such a thing has any meaning. So how did I end up reading a memoir?

A few months ago, I completed the research I’ve been doing for my new novel so I finally returned to reading books for pleasure. But hold! I have a stack of GoodReads authors’ books collecting under my coffeetable. All of these books were either traded in exchange for my first novel or were purchased online while the author purchased my book in kind. It’s an interesting and somewhat nerve-wracking process because I don’t want to waste my time on crappy books, and I don’t like the idea of trashing a virtual friend’s book. On the other hand, I hope to discover a few hidden gems this way and some books I’d never read otherwise. Fortunately, Jen Knox’s Musical Chairs is in the latter group.

I had no idea that memoirs were a whole genre of autobiography. If someone put me up against a wall—say, a Genre Executioner—I’d say an autobiography was for famous people, and a memoir was for the rest of us. I Wikipedia’d “memoir,” and apparently such is not the case. The distinction is ambiguous, but autobiographies apparently relate the narrator’s entire life, while memoirs are more likely to focus on particular events or time periods and are less interested in names/dates/people. And famous people do write memoirs. Why not … they’re famous. They can do ANYTHING.

Given my prejudice, I was skeptical I would enjoy this book, thinking that the only memoir worth reading would surely feature stories like “How I invaded Poland and lost.” Anyone else who wrote a memoir was self-indulgent, weren’t they? I mean … who cares? How interesting could Jen Knox’s story be?

Well, it was pretty damn interesting. She might not be famous, but she was an alcoholic-runaway-stripper-now-writer-with-panic-attacks who nearly died a couple times. Her life is worth reading about. This is confessional writing, so it deserves praise just for being that. I imagine it must’ve been difficult to put into words for the world to read. And if it wasn’t … come to think of it, perhaps it would have been valuable if she had expounded a bit on how she felt about baring her soul (pardon the pun) to the general public and even her family.

Without a doubt, this book is an interesting read. The central question of it remains rather ambiguous, however. I do not call this a flaw because it’s clearly honest. She talks about why she thinks she became a stripper and why she ran away, and she says it wasn’t “low self-esteem” or “daddy issues,” but was primarily that both actions seemed “glamorous” to her. She also mentions having a need to keep moving and not slow down in association with her running away. But I can’t help but wonder why her NEED to be glamorous or keep moving reached such an extreme level that it drove her to run away or turn to stripping. I want deeper answers. And I’ll tell you why … because I’m having a daughter myself in just about a month, so…

Now, I want to be clear. I’m NOT psychoanalyzing Jen, nor am I presuming to understand what really drove her. I am about to make a textual analysis based how I would snoop through any novel to understand its meaning. Call it “reader response.”

More than anything else for me, this book was a cautionary tale about how not to be a FATHER. She says it wasn’t “Daddy-issues” (what kind of Daddy issues would those be?), but I didn’t find this bare statement convincing because it wasn’t backed up by the text. He comes across as both domineering and distant—unemotional and unaffectionate. She tells one story of him forcing her to run and run and run with him in the park against her will, and to me it read like torture. Jen never blames him, which is probably a good thing for her. She has taken responsibility for her actions. Yet given my reading of the story as an outsider, if someone asked me after reading it why this 15-year-old Jen Knox ran away, I’d say it’s because her father was so alternately distant and controlling that her life burst out of its gates. And given that her father seemed so central (he may or may not have told her “don’t come back” when she said she was going to leave), I wish there had been more time spent on him. I may have missed it, but I don’t recall a detailed physical description of him, which would’ve helped me imagine him better.

Of course, the truth may be otherwise (if there is any such thing) but given where my head is right now, with fatherhood coming, this is my interpretation. It would appear that I did learn something from this story after all. Love your kids and show it openly … without telling them what to do. Find a way to balance discipline with freedom. Then, hopefully, your daughters won’t run away and become strippers … and your sons won’t carry guns and sell cheap pot. Good pot, yes. Cheap pot, no.

This book gave me a lot to chew on. Given I’m a skeptic about autobiographies, I hope you’ll take this as review as a ringing endorsement. ( )

A story of young girl unhappy with home life, runs away and enters world of alcohol and stripping. Follows Jen's story as she struggles to find happiness and turn her life around. Well written, interesting, but not very original. ( )

You may not love the account, but anyone who appreciates the art of simple expressions singing to you will fall head over heels in love with the writing. Not one word is wasted, and I do mean not a one! It's the key ingredients that preludes a page-turner, which Musical Chairs most certainly is.

To clarify, I thoroughly enjoyed Jen's memoir. For me, this account wasn't about a fifteen-year old girl who ran away from home, danced, ran from home to home some more, and found her niche. Just taking one itty-bitty frame of many such frames, I was truly taken by the way Jen laid her experiences on paper... such as her applying make-up on a girl's face... `with a shaky hand...extending a business card...one she imagined the girl would take home, stain with tears of inadequacy, and then ball up in a fit of never-mind-rage...'

I also came to love the relationship she had with her father, and mother, and in particular enjoyed the musical interludes she shared with her grandmother(s)... Glory included. The writing here really goes far with so little (and I'm speaking of actual word choice) to paint one heck of a memoir. Sweet. ( )

I found Jen Knox's story fascinating, insightful and thought-provoking. I would recommend this book to readers of all genres, whether they usually read memoirs or not. There is so much in this story that thrills and entertains, probably as much if not more than a fiction story. It would be great to see this life story portrayed in a film as some of the scenes literally come off the page. There are many memorable scenes, and Jen Knox has written her story with passion, and compassion for her younger self.
At fifteen Jen ran away from home, and her running away became a pattern in her life. She lived through many difficult experiences before she was able to turn her life around. This book is inspirational, as it is written by someone who seemed to have come off the tracks and had no hope of ever finding her way; but the story takes us on a journey showing how Jen finally found her true identity. She found it by going back to the place she had been running from all her life -- her own family. I enjoyed reading about Jen's grandmother and great-grandmother and how they had such an influence on her life and eventually helped her to find herself. The book tackles an important subject area, that of mental illness and more importantly the diagnosis of mental illness. It seems that these days people are so easily labelled with forms of mental disorder because of behaviour which is not seen as 'normal'. What this book did was make me question whether the diagnosis is ever correct. I am someone who is suspicious of medication in general anyway, and hate to see the way that pills are being dished out as a solution rather than looking at causes and other ways of dealing with problems.
This is not just a memoir, this is a message, and a valuable lesson taught by someone who has lived through trauma and survived. ( )

Finally a memoir that isn’t wholly depressing or full of purple prose glorifying cozy memories. I tend to shy away from memoirs because of reminiscent qualities or ‘what I’ve learned’ advice and reflections. This is a poignant account of one girl’s journey from childhood to adulthood. The story is well-crafted through a fluid telling that is both engaging and honest. The author offers no excuses, but rather details her life events as they unfolded. Nothing is glorified or horrified, but exposed for the reader to see, which allows for sympathy, not pity. Nothing is over done, which gives the story a truthful and believable quality. The comic relief and timing is perfect and does not distract from the gritty topics presented.

Although I could never personally achieve what Knox accomplished with this book because the pain of self-examination is too terrifying for me to explore, I think there are places in the story that are a tad rushed. The connection between grandmother is clear as far as ‘running,’ but my curiosity is also drawn to the lineage of mental illness and alcohol. I want to know to date, even after her move, how is Jen coping with these struggles, or is she? ( )