Growing up in remote, rural areas, singer-songwriter Neko Case found that her love of reading provided an escape. In her forthcoming memoir, The Harder I Fight the More I Love You (Hachette, January), she recalls repeatedly flipping through the same October 1972 issue of Mad magazine, poring over her stepdad’s collection of archaeology books, and forcing herself to finish David Copperfield.
“A book can bring a whole other piece of the world to you to layer over what’s happening, and you don’t feel so alone,” she says.
American Libraries spoke with Case about writing her first book and the role libraries have played in her life.
You recount several traumatic life events in your memoir. What do you hope readers take away from your story?
I’m hoping that people can really absorb—even if they’re partway to realizing it—that what other people think isn’t a big deal at all. If you just literally decide that other people’s opinions of you don’t matter, you have a lot less to lose. It’s a purer way to live. I sound like I’m oversimplifying it, because it’s not that simple, but it is one great way to poke a hole in the dam of the obstacles in your way.
In the chapters that cover your early years, you describe listening to and making music as an escape. Is that still the relationship you have with music today?
I still use music in those ways, but I didn’t have to think about it as much back then. I took it for granted. That’s the way our society uses music; it’s the most taken-for-granted art form there is. We don’t realize what it takes to make it, physically or emotionally for people, and what people are willing to do to bring it to us.
You write that because of the lack of representation, you didn’t realize for many years that you could be in a band, let alone the frontperson. What changed?
I remember being a teenager and listening to The Cramps. The Cramps were one of my favorite bands. I pored over the record liner notes a million times before I realized Poison Ivy was the lead guitar player. And I felt so ashamed when I realized that. “How did I not see the woman?” Like, I’m so trained to not see the woman. I read the credits a million times and still didn’t get it. And I was just like, “There’s something radically wrong with my wiring.”
With regular touring over the past several years and working on other projects, how did you fit in writing a book?
I worked on it mostly when I was at home. I had a very lucky physical thing happen, where I suddenly shifted from being a night person to an extreme morning person. I found that the hours between 5 and 9 a.m. were so nice for writing—making a cup of coffee, sitting in bed, waking up, and writing was very blissful. I did a lot of writing on my front porch too.
I think it’s just hormonal shifts in age. [Case is 54.] My body said, “Going to bed at 9:30 p.m. feels pretty good.” I remember when I was super young, when I would stay up partying or be out drinking after a show or whatever, and you’d start to see the sun come up. There would be that dread, like, “Oh my god, I’ve got to go to bed right now.” But now I just enjoy watching the sunrise.
You’ve also been working on the score of an upcoming Broadway show. Is there anything you can share about that? How has that experience differed from other songwriting?
I can’t tell you what it is, but I can talk about it. [I’m] collaborating with several other people, and it’s really intense. Everything is scrutinized, which is totally opposite of how I write my own songs. At first I was worried that I might feel a little funny about it, but luckily I had the experience of working with [songwriters] k. d. lang and Laura Veirs, and we all wrote songs together and juried them. So I realized I did love collaboration.
Sometimes you have to let go of things you’re married to, but the people I’m working with are so talented. They’re experts at what they’re doing. Sometimes there are things I fight for. We’re all very opinionated and very fierce about things. It’s kind of a cacophonous room sometimes. But then, five minutes later, we’ll go to lunch, and everybody can leave whatever grievance they have in the room. It feels very much like a functional family, which communicates in a healthy way. I get a real rush out of it. It’s basically a master class in songwriting.
How have libraries played a role in your life?
When I was young, libraries were a place where I could sit down and just dream about things with a book. They were safe spaces, for sure. They smelled like books, which was a very comforting smell. In grade school, they were also about listening to records with giant headphones on, and you didn’t have to be with other people. It was encouraged to be quiet. So it was a space where, if you weren’t with somebody hanging out, it didn’t seem like you were not in with other kid.
