Leave it to west coast publisher MacAdam/Cage (who has published such wonders as Lazy Eye by Donna Daley Clarke), to pick up Linda Robertson’s hilarious break-up memoir What Rhymes with Bastard?. I recommended it in a recent edition of Lei Chic, and included it below so you can see why.
Goodbye to You
By Christine Thomas
Published in Lei Chic, 9/2/08
You’ve had them all: short ones, tall ones, dumb ones, nerd ones, distant ones, smothering ones, too-perfect ones and wish-I-could-forget-that-one ones. But in all your breakup experiences, you never wrote songs about them.
Maybe that’s because you weren’t as witty, talented or frank as Linda Robertson, or just never had a boyfriend (or in her case, husband) as crazy, sex-obsessed, drunk, sweet, mean, and unforgettable as hers. In her new memoir “What Rhymes with Bastard?” Robertson not only writes songs about Jack (like an entertaining ditty about the discomforts of outdoor sex) and life after moving from England to San Francisco (like one about their pervert landlord), but also brutally and hilariously details all that women learn about men during their first real relationship.
Far from standard chick-lit and never a victim’s account of a dysfunctional marriage and sex life, this book is brave, unvarnished, sometimes repulsive and often moving tale of how her own voice and independence (along with winning accordion playing) sprung from the humor and sadness of a decaying relationship.
It’ll make you wish your breakups were that inspiring, and then be thankful they weren’t.
Besides, her songs are much better than ours could ever be.
Available online at Amazon.com
Literary Lotus 