To Throw Away Unopened - by VIV Albertine (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Her writing is wiry and cogent and fearless ... with an honest, lo-fi grace ... Electric."--Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"To Throw Away Unopenedshows us the power and possibility of change. In any media, Viv Albertine is a visionary cultural force."--Chris Kraus

Book Synopsis

NPR BOOK OF THE YEAR

AS HEARD ON NPR'S FRESH AIR

"Enthusiastically chaotic...on the page she is wry and vibrant..."--New York Times

"Brave and engaging."--Kirkus Reviews

At the launch party for her memoir Clothes Music Boys in 2014, Viv Albertine received the news her mother was dying. She left the party immediately and spent a few final hours with a woman who had been an enormous presence and force in her life. In the weeks that followed, Viv was left with the task of sorting through her mother's affairs. In that process she came across one fatally curious item: a bag labelled "To throw away unopened".

This auspicious moment lies at the heart of Viv Albertine's second book, part memoir, part manifesto, part polemic in which she touches on sex, ageing, feminism (in all its guises) and other conundrums that characterize the 21st century life. It is a bold and unapologetic follow-up to a book which became a sensation by a musician and writer who sits at the heart of the counter-cultural landscape today as a celebrated and feted figure.

Review Quotes

"Oh Viv Albertine! I salute you. Such honesty!"--Nigella Lawson

"Forget Katniss And Tris - Viv Albertine Is Your New Hero."--MTV.com

"A fully realized portrait of its author."--Rolling Stone

"Viv Albertine, I love your book VERY badly. It's amazing."--Caitlin Moran

"To Throw Away Unopened is enthusiastically chaotic...on the page she is wry and vibrant..."--New York Times

"In her second memoir, the influential rocker addresses life after punk. Albertine's publishing debut, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. (2014), earned widespread acclaim beyond music circles. Its unflinching honesty and street-wise feminism struck responsive chords as she recounted the formative years of British punk rock and her standard-bearing role in the Slits, a female band that demanded to be taken seriously within punk's male-dominated hierarchy. Now that Albertine's music career appears to be over--or is at least winding down--she has become a writer, with this second book required to follow the breakthrough success of the first. Here, the author dwells little on the music through which most previously knew her--and which she covered so well in her previous book--and more on her roles, mother, daughter, and sister, among others. As Albertine prepared for the book party to launch her memoir, she learned that her 95-year-old mother was on her deathbed, so she rushed with her daughter to be by her side. There, she joined her younger sister, with whom she was once much closer. The two engaged in a horrific battle at their mother's bedside, a hair-pulling, blood-letting fight to the finish between two women in their mid-50s whose years of bottled-up tension was just waiting to explode: " 'You're mad, ' said [sister] Pascal. She was right. I was mad. Completely insane. A deranged, murderous, certifiable, raging lunatic." The narrative intersperses short paragraphs detailing the mother's death as the sisters battled between slightly longer reminiscences about growing up together as their family was falling apart and how their mother did her best to keep them estranged from their father. Albertine also quotes at length from her father's diary and her mother's testimony on the dissolution of that marriage, which she discovered after the death of each, and which frequently contradicted each other (and sometimes her own memory). "Truth is splintered," she concludes. Not the cultural resource that her first memoir was, but still as brave and engaging in the writing."
--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Songwriter and musician Viv Albertine was the guitarist in cult female punk band The Slits. She was a key player in British counter-culture before her career in TV and film Directing. Her first solo album The Vermilion Border was released in 2012, and her memoir, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys was a Sunday Times, Mojo, Rough Trade, and NME Book of the Year in 2014.