There is a recurring theme in Society’s Child, one common to stories of child stars, of missing out on childhood, from feeling that “there was already a fair amount of female visible” on her at age 11, and the subsequent molestation, to signing her first record deal at 14. While Janis Ian the entertainer was featured alongside Brian Wilson and Jim McGuinn on Leonard Berstein’s memorable 1967 TV special Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, she was also the kid who had recently used her first check from Elektra Records to buy a copy of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic adolescent novel, A Wrinkle in Time.
Ian is far more accomplished than her “two-hit wonder” status in pop music history, and she touches on resume highlights that include Grammy nominations and international success in the 1970s, appearing on the very first presentation of Saturday Night Live (hosted by George Carlin), and founding her own record label in the 1990s. While she is tactful about namedropping, glimpses of other celebrities place Ian’s story in the rarified world she’s intermittently lived in. She deserves to be recognized as a hero, if for no other reason than standing up to a domineering Barbara Streisand, and consequently losing her chance to write songs for Streisand’s remake of A Star Is Born.
For all the misfortune and misadventure in Janis Ian’s life, she never indulges in self-pity or undue bitterness, but seems to have become more determined and resilient with each setback. She chronicles these episode — the catastrophes and the triumphs — with an unflinching honesty that makes her story compelling and sympathetic. Given her personal history, Ian could have rightfully titled her book, Live through This.
Descriptive terms like candid, courageous, and conversational are overused to the point of cliché in describing autobiographies, but they all apply to Society’s Child. Highly readable, deeply moving, and ultimately uplifting, Janis Ian’s is easily one of the best contemporary musician’s biographies not written by Peter Guralnick.
[The “Society’s Child” lyrics and WAV/MP3 are available from Project Gutenburg, the free e-book site, at: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3001]
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