Robert Forster’s Grant & I and Alisson Wood’s Being Lolita

by Stephanie McCarthy

Best friends & fellow singing, songwriting & music partners, Grant McLennan & Robert
 Forster of the band, the Go-Betweens.

 

Grant & I: Inside and Outside the Go-Betweens by Robert Forster, $14.83 at AbeBooks 

This was not a very happy and enjoyable read. Right from the beginning, you’re basically dreading the untimely death of one of the lead singers of the group, Grant McLennan, from alcoholism. It’s not easy being a musician and the book captures this very well, especially if you’re more on the sensitive side and have depression, like Grant did. At the end of the day, he was too much of a people pleaser, whereas the other lead singer of the band and author of this book, Robert Forster, was more of an oddball and couldn’t care less what you thought of him and the Go-Betweens’ music. It’s a crime that this band didn’t gain more notoriety in their heyday. Their music still sounds wonderful and fresh all these years later. It’s actually so good that I put three of their songs, “Love Goes On,” “Streets of Your Town,” and “Spring Rain” on me and my husband’s wedding playlist.

Robert Forster’s writing is very similar to Barthe DeClements and Judy Blume’s writing. The sentence structure is clunky and somewhat hard to follow at times. I felt like I needed to get a pen out to set off certain words and phrases with commas. He also could’ve better tracked the record labels the Go-Betweens were with and were eventually dropped from. Because there were so many, they tend to blur together after a while. The book is at its best when Forster is describing lifestyle changes, such as drinking less, after becoming a father and getting hepatitis C and how other great musicians and bands were supportive of the Go-Betweens and their music, such as Lloyd Cole, R.E.M., The Birthday Party, and Orange Juice.

Being Lolita by Alisson Wood book cover with red heart-shaped sunglasses and the side

of the right lens is cracked 

I was pretty much alone when I filed a complaint against one of my professors in college for being too handsy. That was one of the many inappropriate things he did and that my school allowed him to get away with before they finally decided not to renew his contract nearly 10 years later.

Then I read Alisson Wood’s story on The Rumpus, “The Warning Bell” and I felt like a huge weight was lifted off my chest. All those years of keeping what had happened to me bottled up for the most part and all the shame and self-blame that went with it—it all dissolved when I read her piece. I was no longer alone in my experience. I had an ally who understood exactly what I went through.

So, I thank you, Alisson, from the bottom of my heart. Keep on doing the amazing work that you do.

If you happen to like it (and I'm confident you will), you can buy her book, Being Lolita, for $8.24 at AbeBooks. It goes into further detail of what she went through in her short story. I plan on discussing the book in greater detail once I make more progress in getting the ridiculously high amount of writing projects off my queue.

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