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by Karen Tongson
Published: 2019
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Paperback: 138
Rating: 5
Biography, Memoir, Essay, Music | Goodreads
First sentence(s):
Unlike many other young icons of rock and pop lost to overdoses under dramatic circumstances, from Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix to Jim Morrison, Karen Carpenter faded out slowly, just like the music she and her brother, Richard, were known for making together as the Carpenters.
In the '60s and '70s, America's music scene was marked by raucous excess, reflected in the tragic overdoses of young superstars such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. At the same time, the uplifting harmonies and sunny lyrics that propelled Karen Carpenter and her brother, Richard, to international fame belied a different sort of tragedy—the underconsumption that led to Karen's death at age thirty-two from the effects of an eating disorder.
In Why Karen Carpenter Matters, Karen Tongson (whose Filipino musician parents named her after the pop icon) interweaves the story of the singer’s rise to fame with her own trans-Pacific journey between the Philippines—where imitations of American pop styles flourished—and Karen Carpenter’s home ground of Southern California. Tongson reveals why the Carpenters' chart-topping, seemingly whitewashed musical fantasies of "normal love" can now have profound significance for her—as well as for other people of color, LGBT+ communities, and anyone outside the mainstream culture usually associated with Karen Carpenter’s legacy. This hybrid of memoir and biography excavates the destructive perfectionism at the root of the Carpenters’ sound, while finding the beauty in the singer's all too brief life.
My two-bits:
While it was fascinating to get some details about Karen Carpenter, the celebrity's influence on the author and Filipinos kept me engaged to the end.
* part of October Filipino American Month
* part of Filipino Reading Challenge (here)
