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Horror Stories

A Memoir

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Horror Stories

Written by: Liz Phair
Narrated by: Liz Phair
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About this listen

The two-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter behind the groundbreaking album Exile in Guyville traces her life and career in a genre-bending memoir in stories about the pivotal moments that haunt her.

When Liz Phair shook things up with her musical debut, Exile in Guyville - making her as much a cultural figure as a feminist pioneer and rock star - her raw candor, uncompromising authenticity, and deft storytelling inspired a legion of critics, songwriters, musicians, and fans alike. Now, like a Gen X Patti Smith, Liz Phair reflects on the path she has taken in these piercing essays that reveal the indelible memories that have stayed with her.

For Phair, horror is in the eye of the beholder - in the often unrecognized universal experiences of daily pain, guilt, and fear that make up our humanity. Illuminating despair with hope and consolation, tempering it all with her signature wit, Horror Stories is immersive, taking listeners inside the most intimate junctures of Phair’s life, from facing her own bad behavior and the repercussions of betraying her fundamental values, to watching her beloved grandmother inevitably fade, to undergoing the beauty of childbirth while being hit up for an autograph by the anesthesiologist.

Horror Stories is a literary accomplishment that reads like the confessions of a friend. It gathers up all of our isolated shames and draws them out into the light, uniting us in our shared imperfection, our uncertainty and our cowardice, smashing the stigma of not being in control. But most importantly, the uncompromising precision and candor of Horror Stories transforms these deeply personal experiences into tales about each and every one of us.

Musical interludes composed and performed by Liz Phair.

Advance praise for Horror Stories

"Liz Phair’s songwriting has always had the rare quality of being short-story-like. Damn good short stories, too. Horror Stories has that unique Liz Phair ability to make you look at something you’d rather not, but once you do you’re glad you did - like any form of honest art. This is why Liz Phair still is, and always will be, a threat." (Ben Folds)

©2019 Liz Phair (P)2019 Random House Audio
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What the critics say

"Liz Phair’s Horror Stories is a deeply personal narrative about a ground-breaking musician’s intense love affair with life, with all its turbulent highs and lows. It is also about those things that have sustained Phair since childhood: the wonder and healing power of nature, music, and family. A compelling blend of riveting prose and soaring lyricism, Horror Stories is as enthralling and as addictive as Phair's music." (Mira Bartók, New York Times best-selling author of The Memory Palace, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award)

"Horror Stories is a collection of turning points, plucked free of ongoing time and their original settings. Gathered, they sparkle eerily, expanding to occupy an entire remembered year - maybe even an entire remembered self." (Sarah Manguso)

"Horror Stories cracks open the idea of fear itself to see what's inside. Liz Phair’s stories are heartbreaking and inspiring, galvanizing and contemplative. This memoir is as much about the poignant luminosity of the subjects upon which Phair fixes her gaze as it is about the darkness she shows us. Witnessing her examine the moments that have stayed with her over the years is captivating: a literary triumph by a musical icon." (Lily Brooks-Dalton, author of Good Morning, Midnight)

What listeners say about Horror Stories

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Better Than 'Fair'

A superbly written book— honest and engaging. It's always so revealing to find out what stories an author chooses to tell in their memoir, and these ones paint perhaps a different portrait than some would imagine. Yes, I would love to know more about her creative process, the songwriting, the music itself. And perhaps that is forthcoming. But it's such a personal book, and I can relate to the feelings and events and challenges she describes.Without a doubt, she has a way with words too, and reads them so well, with natural inflection that's somewhere between storytelling and conversation. The pace is PERFECT. All too often I find that audio book narrators read too quickly, leaving no time for the words to sink in, for images to form. Only one minor criticism, and that was the odd way she pronounced a few words, not is in an alternative pronunciation but as if the word was an unfamiliar one for her. Not hesitating but just saying it wrong. I suppose occasionally these things happen when you read aloud, and I guess the editors didn't pick up on these spots. But overall, I LOVE this book and I hope she has more in the works!

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Phairly portrayed girly stories!!

Snippets of events from Liz Phair’s life captured and narrated in unabashed Liz fashion. This wasn’t ‘exactly’ the format I expected from the book, and I think that’s the very reason I enjoyed it as much as I did.

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