No Walls and the Recurring Dream: A Memoir

DiFranco, a Grammy Award–winning musician and political activist, makes her literary debut in this powerful reflection on her life and career. Born in 1970, DiFranco grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., the daughter of an aeronautical engineer father and an architect mother, who designed their wall-less, “donut-shaped” house. DiFranco credits her father with forming her “musical subconscious” by introducing her to the music of composer Aaron Copland, guitarist John Fahey, and folk musician Pete Seeger; her mother, meanwhile, instilled in her a sense of social activism. DiFranco began her musical career as a preteen, learning the piano and the guitar while writing her own songs. After her parents separated, she moved out of her mother’s house at age 15, finding spare rooms with friends and even sleeping in the bus station. DiFranco immersed herself in music (“I began my musical journey at the intersection of Suzanne Vega and John Martyn”), and moved to New York City in 1989, where she studied poetry and feminism at the New School. In 1990, she cofounded Righteous Babe Records and released her self-titled debut record. Throughout, DiFranco writes of her self-doubts and romantic hardships, including her 2003 divorce from husband Andrew Gilchrist; she also discusses her advocacy for women’s reproductive rights (she herself had two abortions; she now has two children). Honest and passionate, DiFranco’s memoir will resonate with her many fans. (May)