Current:Home > FinanceIn 'Someone Who Isn't Me,' Geoff Rickly recounts the struggles of some other singer-Angel Dreamer Wealth Society D1 Reviews & Insights
In 'Someone Who Isn't Me,' Geoff Rickly recounts the struggles of some other singer
View Date:2024-12-23 20:42:48
While grappling with the massive ambition of Someone Who Isn't Me, the debut novel by Geoff Rickly, it's helpful to look back at the debut album by Rickly's legendary emo/post-hardcore band, Thursday. That album, Waiting, came out in 1999, when Rickly was just 20 years old. His inexperience showed: Although Waiting is an electrifying record, it's overly beholden to its obvious influences (mainly Fugazi and Sunny Day Real Estate, two of the most popular bands of those genres). Waiting also fails to fully showcase the staggering potential of Rickly as both a vocalist and a lyricist. It wasn't until Thursday's second album in 2001, Full Collapse, when it all came together. It's rightly considered a classic of its era, and it crystallized Rickly as — no hyperbole, just fact — one of the most poetic, impactful and inspirational voices of his generation.
Does that mean Someone Who Isn't Me is the literary equivalent of Waiting, a debut work that shows more promise than power? Not exactly. After all, Rickly is now in his 40s. Between Thursday and all the other bands he's fronted over the past quarter-decade, he's written the equivalent of many books, only in song form. Of course, a novel is very different from an album, and many musicians have dashed themselves against the rocks in an attempt to transfer their lyrical ability to prose. As it turns out, Rickly is solidly in the camp of successful songwriters-turned-authors such as John Darnielle and Nick Cave. When it comes to making the shift to the written word, he's a natural, albeit a germinal one.
Someone Who Isn't Me is a semifictional account of Rickly's own ups and downs as a tormented creative, a sensual being, and a heroin addict. If that sounds less than original, that's because writers such as William Burroughs and Jim Carroll perfected this type of book decades ago. (It takes all of three pages into Someone before Rickly actually name checks Burroughs.) That doesn't, however, make Rickly's addition to the canon any less vital. A saga of innerspace, the story pingpongs across years and coasts as Rickly alternately tiptoes and bulldozes through band tours, romantic relationships, and a chronicle of his real-life drug battles. He uses his own name for his protagonist, but he's wise to detach much his narrative from hard reality. Elevating his story above the bounds of believability, he injects speculative elements such as the imagined, psychedelic, anti-heroin drug called ibogaine, which evokes science-fictional pharmaceuticals of literature past like Kurt Vonnegut's anti-gerasone and Philip K. Dick's silenizine.
Again, there's nothing really new here, except for Rickly's singular language and force. His lyrics and vocals have always experimented with form, texture, emotion, and modes of address, so it's no surprise that Someone does the same. Passages of cut-glass sharpness dissolve into flow-state streams of consciousness. He navigates "whole city blocks compressing in accordion bellows"; he recounts how he "started a band and screamed into rusty microphones, jumping around the stage until my shoes filled with blood." Hallucinatory prose is rarely this vivid — nor does it usually bristle with the visceral punk energy that Rickly has honed throughout his career as an explosive onstage presence.
Rickly does not skimp. He writes each sentence as if it might be the last he'll ever get to pen. It's the same punch of urgency that propels every line of his lyrics in Thursday. Most often that urgency works to his advantage; occasionally it hamstrings him. He doesn't write as if his life depends on it — he writes as if his minutes are numbered and nothing can save him from death. His passages of run-on automatic writing almost always overstay their welcome, and at times so do his labored metaphors. But these are cosmetic issues; even at its most awkwardly inward, the book barrels along at the velocity of, well, a really great Thursday song.
At one point in the story, a medic at a music festival rushes onto the stage after a catharsis-chasing, self-destructive Rickly accidentally cracks his nose open with his microphone. "I'm not a doctor so I wouldn't want to rush a diagnosis," the medic tells Rickly's bandmates. "But I'd say he almost certainly shows signs of being a lead singer. It's a real shame, but there's nothing else I can do for him." Yes, there's also dark humor in Someone Who Isn't Me, and it's one of the many dimensions that helps push the novel in a daringly different direction from so many of its influences. Taken alone, Rickly's book is a solid and promising literary debut. Placed in the context of his entire body of creative work, Someone Who Isn't Me is likely to be the raw, opening salvo of a impressive new career.
veryGood! (26338)
Related
- Jared Goff stats: Lions QB throws career-high 5 INTs in SNF win over Texans
- Iraq scrambles to contain fighting between US troops and Iran-backed groups, fearing Gaza spillover
- Groups want full federal appeals court to revisit ruling limiting scope of the Voting Rights Act
- Third Mississippi man is buried in a pauper’s grave without family’s knowledge
- ‘I got my life back.’ Veterans with PTSD making progress thanks to service dog program
- Jennifer Aniston Reveals She Was Texting Matthew Perry Hours Before His Death
- Work to resume at Tahiti’s legendary Olympic surfing site after uproar over damage to coral reef
- Former Fox host Tucker Carlson is launching his own streaming network with interviews and commentary
- Police identify 7-year-old child killed in North Carolina weekend shooting
- Air Force watchdog finds alleged Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira's unit failed to take action after witnessing questionable activity
Ranking
- NFL overreactions: New York Jets, Dallas Cowboys going nowhere after Week 10
- Dutch official says Geert Wilders and 3 other party leaders should discuss forming a new coalition
- Closing arguments start in trial of 3 Washington state police officers charged in Black man’s death
- Rohingya Muslims in Indonesia struggle to find shelter. President says government will help for now
- Sofia Richie Reveals 5-Month-Old Daughter Eloise Has a Real Phone
- Rohingya Muslims in Indonesia struggle to find shelter. President says government will help for now
- Sarah McLachlan celebrates 30 years of 'Fumbling' with new tour: 'I still pinch myself'
- Elon Musk Makes Rare Appearance With His and Grimes’ Son X Æ A-Xii
Recommendation
-
Investigators believe Wisconsin kayaker faked his own death before fleeing to eastern Europe
-
Arizona remains at No. 1 in the USA TODAY Sports men's basketball poll
-
Journalists tackle a political what-if: What might a second Trump presidency look like?
-
'I ain't found it yet.' No line this mother won't cross to save her addicted daughter
-
'Squid Game' creator lost '8 or 9' teeth making Season 1, explains Season 2 twist
-
Raven-Symoné reveals her brother died of colon cancer: 'I love you, Blaize'
-
Ciara Gives Birth, Welcomes Baby With Husband Russell
-
Israel continues attacks across Gaza as hopes for cease-fire fade