Liz Phair's Rebellious Streak Works For Her

Death, Sex & Money

• Episode: Liz Phair's Rebellious Streak Works For Her
• Website: Death, Sex & Money
• Feed URL: http://feeds.wnyc.org/deathsexmoney
• Duration: 00:27:48
• Published: 2019-12-18 18:00

In 1994, musician Liz Phair was 27, fresh off the runaway success of her albums Exile In Guyville and Whipsmart, and on on the cover of Rolling Stone under the headline "A Rock And Roll Star Is Born." And she was miserable.

In her new book, Horror Stories, she writes about the uncertainty and the restlessness of that time in her life. And in our conversation, she tells me that her decision to then get married and "retreat into domesticity" at that point seems, in hindsight, like an overcorrection. "I was trying to pull back into a self that I recognized," she says. "And I just pulled back too far." Today, she tells me about cheating in that marriage as a way of finding herself again, and how years later, finding herself on the other side of a betrayal helped her feel like the karmic score had been settled.

Thanks to Random House for making a chapter of Liz's memoir Horror Stories available for us to share with you. Click here to read it.

We've also built a Spotify playlist of our favorite Liz Phair songs. You can find it here.

"Customer Experience" excerpted from Horror Stories by Liz Phair Copyright © 2019 by Liz Phair. Excerpted by permission of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.