Few and far between again, perhaps, but in subjects all over the proverbial map...

Society's Child: My Biography
By Janis Ian

The Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter of the once-controversial 1966 hit "Society’s Child," about an interracial love affair, and 1975’s wallflower anthem "At Seventeen," has penned a memoir of her more than 40 years in the professional music business, as well as intimate details about her personal life. She recounts when she was molested by the family dentist as a child, drugged by a stranger on the streets of New York, beaten and threatened with death by a psychotic husband, sexually molested by her therapist, persecuted by the IRS, and cheated by business managers. Serious medical troubles also repeatedly sidelined Ian, including a debilitating bout of chronic fatigue syndrome. The pressures of the music industry and the stresses of family life also drove Ian to a nervous breakdown at the age of 19.

"I was born into the crack that split America," Ian writes, and her involvement in the fading folk music scene of the 1960s as it gave way to rock and pop elements nevertheless helped shape her folk-pop songwriting talents while she was still in her teens. The autobiography shares a title with her first single, "Society’s Child" — the interracial romance too taboo for many record labels and radio stations of the time — but the record climbed the charts and became a hit anyway. Ian was on her way in the music business, as she chronicles how she did drugs with Jimi Hendrix, went shopping for Grammy clothes with Janis Joplin, and sang with Mel Tormé - all the while never ceasing to create her own brand of folk-pop music. In 1975 the poignant "At Seventeen" earned two Grammy awards and five nominations.

But during the 1980s Ian made a conscious decision to walk away from the hardships of the music business to study ballet and acting. She also struggled through a difficult marriage that ended with her then husband's threat to kill her. The hiatus from music lasted for nearly a decade until, in 1993, Ian returned with the release of Breaking Silence. Rather than risk losing artistic control, she took out a second mortgage on her home to fund the record. It paid off as Breaking Silence gained Ian her ninth Grammy nomination, and as Ian gained momentum to continue her career and write this compelling memoir on her own without the need for an "as told to" or "written with" partner.

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