Current:Home > MyIn 'Someone Who Isn't Me,' Geoff Rickly recounts the struggles of some other singer-DB Wealth Institute B2 Expert Reviews
In 'Someone Who Isn't Me,' Geoff Rickly recounts the struggles of some other singer
View Date:2024-12-23 16:54:29
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! (23241)
Related
- Round 2 in the Trump-vs-Mexico matchup looks ominous for Mexico
- Peter Navarro must report to federal prison today after Chief Justice John Roberts rejects bid to delay sentence
- Prepare for the Spring Equinox with These Crystals for Optimism, Abundance & New Beginnings
- The biggest revelations from Peacock's Stormy Daniels doc: Trump, harassment and more
- Missouri prosecutor says he won’t charge Nelly after an August drug arrest
- The Daily Money: Catch solar eclipse from the sky?
- Buckingham Palace Confirms King Charles III Is Alive After Russian Media Reports His Death
- Missing Wisconsin toddler's blanket found weeks after he disappeared
- Tech consultant testifies that ‘bad joke’ led to deadly clash with Cash App founder Bob Lee
- Is your March Madness bracket already busted? You can get free wings at TGI Fridays
Ranking
- Pie, meet donuts: Krispy Kreme releases Thanksgiving pie flavor ahead of holidays
- Key questions as Trump hurtles toward deadline to pay $454 million fraud penalty
- Barack Obama releases NCAA March Madness 2024 brackets: See the former president's picks
- Olivia Culpo Reveals Her Non-Negotiable for Christian McCaffrey Wedding
- Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Take the Day Off
- As electric vehicle sales slow, US relaxes plans for stricter auto emissions standards for a while
- Clemson University sues the ACC over its grant of media rights, exit fees
- 2024 NIT begins: Tuesday's first-round schedule, times, TV for men's basketball games
Recommendation
-
Flurry of contract deals come as railroads, unions see Trump’s election looming over talks
-
US marriages surpass 2 million for first time in years as divorce rates decline: CDC
-
Dr. Dre had three strokes after his brain aneurysm. How common is that?
-
Ex-girlfriend of actor Jonathan Majors files civil suit accusing him of escalating abuse, defamation
-
Why Amanda Seyfried Traded Living in Hollywood for Life on a Farm in Upstate New York
-
Rep. Cory Mills rescues 23 Americans, including Mitch Albom, from chaos in Haiti
-
The biggest revelations from Peacock's Stormy Daniels doc: Trump, harassment and more
-
Earlier Springs Have Cascading Effects on Animals, Plants and Pastimes