My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love

In this intimate essay collection, singer and rap star Dessa, a member of indie hip-hop collective Doomtree, reveals stories of her life as a performer on the road and her quest to find a way to fall out of love. Dessa is brutally honest and self-deprecating. She writes about her rough rise to fame and her creative attempts to rid herself of a longtime love for an unnamed ex-boyfriend whom she also worked with. In “The Fool That Bets Against Me,” she writes to Geico requesting an insurance policy on her breaking heart, an organ she believes helped her write so many songs. In “Congratulations,” she tells of recording her song for The Hamilton Mixtape, using her struggles to reach a high note as a metaphor for her own personal ups and downs. Dessa weaves in stories from the road in her not-so-glamorous tour van (“We’d pull over in a Walmart parking lot to catch a few hours of sleep... all seven of us pass out sitting up”), her interest in neuroscience (and whether it can be used to excise a man from her memory), and the writings of Bertrand Russell and Mary Oliver. Dessa’s fans will be thrilled with these wonderfully crafted essays on music, love, and loss. (Sept.)